Previously Funded Projects

QRC members lead and participate in a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary research projects from the study of past earth climates and glaciations to shifts in the geographic distributions and evolution of vegetation and faunal communities, to the evolution and dispersals of the genus Homo and the increasing scales of human modification of earth environments through the Holocene. QRC provides a venue for meeting and collaborating with scholars across Quaternary disciplines. We are also fortunate to be able to provide seed funding and small grants for member research projects. We are especially happy to support grad student and junior scholar research activities, much of which leads to larger, external funding from agencies like the National Science Foundation.

4 projects in Landslides All Projects
  • 2020-21 | |
    • Kathy Troost, Member

    Establish Monitoring of the Undi Road and Reade Hill Terrace Landslides near Forks, Washington

    Abstract: The Undi Rd and Reade Hill terrace landslides, southeast of Forks, WA, are spectacular examples of active landslides typical of alpine glacial valleys on the west side of the Olympic Peninsula. The Undi Rd landslide sits within the much larger Reade Hill terrace landslide and is growing and moving relatively rapidly. Each year, scarplet heights and the aperture of tension cracks nearly doubles. And yet, little is known about either of these slides even though they have caused repeated road repair and the construction of an emergency bypass road, to maintain access for residents, recreation, fisheries, and some popular trailheads in the Olympic National Park. Our proposal is to begin a monitoring program by installing approximately 24 monitoring points around the perimeter and in the body of the landslides. We will obtain high-precision GPS coordinates and fully document the locations of each monitoring point.

    Our goal is to use the funding provided by the QRC as a starter for obtaining funding for long-term monitoring, investigations, and analyses of these landslides. We will obtain repeat GPS measurements on a quarterly basis for the first year, thereafter twice a year if supported by our data. We plan to conduct factor of safety modelling, detailed mapping, compare yearly structure from motion imagery, and develop a history of past landslide movements. In addition, we plan to describe the impacts of landslide sediment delivery to the Bogachiel River, an important river for fishing, sustenance, and recreation. We are collaborating with several stakeholders including property owners, the Quileute Tribe, Clallam and Jefferson Counties, and other non-profit groups.

    Several graduate students will be involved in data collection, analyses, and reporting. We will present our results to scientific and lay audiences via conferences and community meetings. We hope that the data and the results of our studies warrant at least one peer-reviewed publication.

    Report: pending

  • 2014-15 | |
    • Devin Bedard, Student
    • Terry Swanson, Member

    Dating Puget Landslides and Sediment Deposits

    devin-bedard-ledgewoodAbstract: On the western Whidbey Island shoreline, there is a 3 km-long ancient landslide complex with evidence of episodic mass wasting. The bluff morphology within the ancient landslide complex is that of hummocky terrain buttressing 10 – 20 m-high scarps, and outside of the greater landslide complex there are oversteepened bluffs with only one example of a deep-seated landslide. There are lithologic contacts creating geologic conditions favorable to different hillslope processes based on the underlying sedimentology, for example: dry ravel of gravel and sand, skin slides of loose soil on till, deep-seated landslides rotating over failure planes of clay, etc. In order to locate and classify landslide geohazards, it is necessary to conduct detailed mapping of the substrata. However, correlation of units is difficult without quantitative age control on the units, furthermore there is little quantitative age constraint on the history of landsliding on western Whidbey Island. For this study, we will report on the results of C-14 (and potentially OSL) dates gathered, and apply their contribution to previous dating work in the area.  The results will add context to the glacial and landslide history in the region, which subsequently facilitates the detailed mapping of the stratigraphy. Detailed mapping of the stratigraphy will help us locate landslide-prone regions.

    Report: Read the full report here.

  • 2014-15 | |
    • Brian Collins, Member

    Land use, erosion, and sediment storage over the last two millennia in a mountainous catchment in southwest Sichuan Province

    Abstract: The requested funding will partially support 2015 field work and AMS dates for a field study of land use, soil erosion, and sediment budgets in the upper Baiwu Valley, a small, forested watershed in a mountainous, ethnic minority area of southwest Sichuan Province, China. The project builds on ethnographic and forest ecology research in the area by Steven Harrell (UW Anthropology) and Thomas Hinckley (UW SEFS). The study has three broad objectives: (1) To unravel the environmental history of the watershed and its human occupants—how changing patterns of land use, soil erosion, and fluvial processes have interacted through time. (2) To investigate the sustainability of soil under traditional swidden systems (practiced in the basin from about 1750 to 1950 by members of the Nuosu ethnic group, also the watershed’s current inhabitants) and, more broadly, traditional local knowledge. (3) To characterize the role of sediment storage in a small Yangtze River headwaters basin, over the last two millennia, in modulating the link between natural and anthropogenic erosion and downstream sedimentation. The project consists of field mapping and surveying valley fill; using OSL, 137Cs, 210Pb, and 14C to age valley sediments; mapping soil-profile truncation to assess the extent and intensity of erosion; and using ethnographic data and satellite imagery to understand historical land use practices and patterns.

    Report: [pending]

  • 2014-15 | |
    • Sean LaHusen, Student
    • Alison Duvall, Member

    Frequency of Long Runout Landslides near Oso, WA and the Implications for Landscape Evolution and Natural Hazards

    Abstract: Here we present a new integrated approach to dating landslides on a regional scale by augmenting quantitative surface roughness analysis with radiocarbon dating and numerical landscape modeling. We calibrate a roughness-age curve, which we use to date 25 deep-seated landslides in glacial sediment surrounding the catastrophic A.D. 2014 Oso landslide along the North Fork Stillaguamish River in Washington State (USA). Lidar bare-earth images show a high density of long-runout landslides in this region. Using our roughness-age curve, we estimate an average Holocene landslide frequency of 1 every 140–500 yr, and show that the 2014 Oso landslide was the latest event in an active history of slope failures throughout the Holocene. With each landslide, substantial sediment is delivered to the North Fork Stillaguamish River, driving shifts in the active channel that ultimately affect the pattern of landslides across the valley. The high frequency of landslides in this area, where river incision and isostatic uplift rates have dropped dramatically since peaking soon after ice retreated from the region, shows that landscapes inundated by glacial sediment do not require dramatic changes in base level to remain highly unstable for tens of thousands of years.

    Report: This study uses a limited set of radiocarbon dates from trees killed during past landslides to calibrate a surface roughness-age curve that can be applied to an entire landslide prone region. We use 1m LiDAR bare-earth elevation data to calculate the standard deviation of slope (SDS) within a 15m moving window for each landslide, which we use as a measure of surface roughness. The average SDS values for landslides of known age are then plotted against four absolute age constraints on landsliding: the 2014 Oso landslide, the Rowan landslide, the Headache Creek landslide, and a maximum landslide age constrained by the age of a river terrace 4 m above the modern floodplain. An exponential function provides a good fit for these data, and this function is then used to estimate the ages of all other landslides in the study area.

    Project Outcomes:

    • Results from this study show that surface roughness can be a useful landslide dating tool. This technique enhances the value of a limited set of absolute dates by calibrating a surface roughness-age relationship that can be applied more broadly in development of regional landslide chronologies.
    • An average landslide frequency calculated using the total number of landslides in the study area and assuming no landslides are older than 12,000 yr yields a value of 1 event per 500 yr. However, the high number of young landslides here suggests a preservation bias caused by older landslide deposits being overrun by younger slope failures, or remobilization of older landslide deposits. When only the past 2000 yr are considered, the average landslide frequency is substantially higher, 1 event per 140 yr.
    • We suspect that landslides from one side of the valley repeatedly set up slope failures to occur on the opposite side, over time creating an alternating pattern of landsliding
    • The evidence for postglacial instability throughout the Holocene indicates that the mechanically weak glacial stratigraphy found in this valley, which is typical of ice-sheet advances around the world, presents an ongoing landslide hazard that has persisted for over 10,000 years and will likely continue until the removal of this material from the valley.
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