Giantlandslides

This webpage presents research performed within the Czech Science Foundation project 16-12227Y: "El Hierro megalandslide dynamics analysed using 'big data' to predict the future behaviour of megalandslides on other volcanic islands".

This project has several tasks including:

Monitoring and investigation of an incipient San Andrés megalandslide on the El Hierro island, Canaries, Spain

Construction of World-wide database of megalandslides on volcanic islands

In more detail, the main aim of the proposed project is to build an automated deformation monitoring system around the incipient San Andrés megalandslide on El Hierro and then to use the big data paradigm both to provide a comprehensive analysis of megalandslide dynamics and to predict the future behaviour of incipient megalandslides on other volcanic islands. This aim is supplemented by two primary objectives. The first is to comprehensively investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of megalandslides and megalandslide reactivation on El Hierro. This will be done through cosmogenic radionuclide dating, structural geological field mapping, and the interrogation of remote sensing imagery within a GIS. The second is to comprehensively investigate the same patterns of megalandslides and megalandslide reactivation around volcanic islands across the globe. This will be done through the construction of a pioneering interactive megalandslide database. Despite the myriad of geophysical datasets which lend themselves to the big data paradigm it is extremely rare for geoscientific research to place data analysis at the heart of a project. Big data has two tremendous advantages over the traditional data processing applications usually used in geoscientific research: it focuses on the simultaneous analysis of disparate heterogeneous data and as a result it has a tremendous predictive capacity. The latter allows us to use the data we collect from a single automated deformation monitoring system around the incipient San Andrés megalandslide on El Hierro to inform discussion about the risks posed by megalandslides on other volcanic islands across the globe. In order to achieve the outlined objectives of the project our research team comprises three assiduous geoscientists and one accomplished data analyst. In many respects we feel that the proposed project offers an entirely new template for the study of geophysical processes and natural hazards.

View of the incipient San Andrés megalandslide on the SE coast of El Hierro, Canaries, Spain.

For more detail please contact:
Dr. Jan Blahut