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Retrospective analysis of the Pico del Castillo de Vinuesa large historical landslide (Cordillera Iberica, Spain)

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Abstract

The failure mechanism of a large historical landslide that caused the partial destruction of the Pico del Castillo de Vinuesa has been determined and characterized by a multidisciplinary approach. This study combines the application of complementary fields such as geological analyses, field and laboratory tests, geomorphological, geomechanical and hydrogeological characterizations, retrospective mathematical simulations, and absolute dating methods to determine the origin and age of the landslide. The instability event occurred shortly before 1600 BP and mobilized more than 30 million m3 of debris from the competent conglomerate layer that formed the ancient summit. The conglomerate is considered to have slid over a claystone layer dipping 12°, following a translational sliding model. The underlying claystone layer constituted the impervious base of the aquifer formed by the displaced material. The hydrogeological conditions played a key role in the slide by changing the mechanical properties of both the claystone and the conglomerate layers.

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Acknowledgments

This work is part of the projects GI1504350086 and GI1704350117 of the Research Group of Geology Applied to Civil Engineering of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. It has also been partially funded by the project “Advanced modeling of hillside landslides (BIA2016-76253-P)” of the Ministry of Education and Science. We would like to sincerely thank Juan José Lucas and José Manuel Meneses, Forestry Engineers of the Ministry of Environment of the Junta de Castilla y León de Soria, for giving us the facilities to perform field tests and take samples of the of the peatland in the Green Lagoon. To Carlos Molina, Engineer of Forestry and Botanist of Soria for the data on the age of the wild pines of the Castillo de Vinuesa. Thanks to Mr. Matthew S. Rose for the language review and Cristina Fonollá for conducting the geotechnical laboratory tests at the Technical School of Civil Engineers in Madrid. We also thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

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  1. Departamento de Ingeniería y Morfología del Terreno. Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    P. Sanz de Ojeda, E. Sanz, R. Galindo, J. I. Escavy & I. Menéndez-Pidal

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  1. P. Sanz de Ojeda
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  2. E. Sanz
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  3. R. Galindo
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  4. J. I. Escavy
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  5. I. Menéndez-Pidal
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Correspondence to J. I. Escavy.

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Sanz de Ojeda, P., Sanz, E., Galindo, R. et al. Retrospective analysis of the Pico del Castillo de Vinuesa large historical landslide (Cordillera Iberica, Spain). Landslides 17, 2837–2848 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-020-01459-7

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