Date of Award:

5-2010

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Advisor/Chair:

John D. Rice

Co-Advisor/Chair:

John D. Rice

Abstract

The Skunk Hollow Landslide (located 1 mile north of Mantua, UT along US-89) was instrumented with an automated monitoring system to aid in the determination of the triggering mechanism of slow moving landslides. Data was transmitted wirelessly through telecommunications to allow year-round, real-time monitoring of the site. Measurements were recorded and analyzed for the first season of landslide movement (fall 2009 to spring 2010) to better understand the correlations between snowmelt and movement initiation. Based on the first year of data, it appears that the Skunk Hollow Landslide is controlled by water infiltrating into the slide mass through cracks and fissures. Snowmelt is a function of many meteorological variables and future years of observation will create a better understanding of the interaction of these variables with landslide initiation.

Comments

This work made publicly available electronically on August 30, 2010.

Copyright for this work is retained by the student.