The Celentino landslide: a geomechanical approach and numerical modelling.

Extensive deformations of mountain slopes are quite common in the Eastern Italian Alps, highlighted by the presence of typical systems of tension cracks, grabens, and antislope scarps as in the Peio Valley (Trentino-Alto Adige Region) where relevant regional faults and thrusts emerge and cross.In this paper, structural, geomorphological and engineering geology surveys were conducted both within and outside the DSGSD to characterize the rock masses. Outcropping rocks, fractured and weathered, consist of garnet paragneiss and micaschists. Geomechanical surveys show the presence of four discontinuity systems that can be referred to the main regional faults.Glacial debuttressing of the valley’s slopes results to have been the essential triggering mechanism for the sliding events. Nevertheless, other mechanisms have been considered, like glacial erosion, post-glacial rebound, pre-existing rock discontinuities and degradation.