3rd International Workshop on Landslides in Sensitive Clays: From landslide mechanisms to social and environmental impacts

Sensitive 1 clays deposits cover regions of the northern hemisphere where freshwater or seawater submerged lowlands during the last deglaciation. The silty to clayey sediments deposited in these sedimentary basins have been vertically uplifted by the subsequent emergence of the ground due to post-glacial isostatic rebound over the last few millennia. This process created landslide-prone slopes along rivers that incised these deposits. Over the same period, humans settled on these deposits, attracted by their proximity to rivers and the sea, as well as by the fertile soils, which fulfilled their needs for water, transport and agriculture. In North America, sensitive clays are mainly found in the lowlands of the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia, as well as in the U.S. states of Maine, Vermont and Alaska. In Europe, sensitive clays are mainly found in lowland regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Sensitive clay slopes can be affected by different types of landslides. Some events, such as superficial or single-rotational landslides, show little or no retrogression2, involve relatively small volumes, and occur with a frequency of several hundred events per year in Quebec. In contrast, more severe and destructive landslide, such as flowslides, spreads or flakes (Leroueil et al. this volume), shows large retrogression distance and large volume, but they are much less frequent. List of Bibliography is available in this PDF.