11 Future Voices in Geoscience- Undergraduate Research Posters

This session is for two-year college and four-year college and university students presenting research posters in any subdiscipline of geosciences. Posters and presentations will be judged for awards.

Monday, 18 May 2026
8:00 AM - 5:30 PM
Alvarado D/E

Using Landslide Volume to Inform Temporal Relationships Between Mass Movements and Glacial Erosion

Paper number: 11-8
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:00 AM – 8:00 AM

Authors

Abstract

The difference between the volumes of landslide scarps and their deposits in northern Yellowstone National Park can be used to determine if landslides in that location have experienced glacial erosion and multiple episodes of failure. This study considered 11 mass movements with volumes larger than 105m3 in Northeast Yellowstone. These slides all occurred in wide glacial valleys and in weathering-resistant Absaroka volcanics. A case study-level model was developed using mensuration tools in ArcGIS Pro to create 3D planes to measure the difference between the volume of landslide scarps and their deposits. This method was then compared to a more conventional model for landslide volume measurement, sloping local base level. While differences between volume of scarp and volume of debris are to be expected, several mass movements exhibited low amounts of debris compared to the expected amount of debris. We speculate that the mass movements exhibiting lower expected debris may have occurred before the Last Glacial Maximum and have been eroded by the Pinedale glaciation. Standard deviation of slope was calculated as a roughness coefficient and used as a proxy to inform relative age relationships of the most recent failures on all slides. The roughness coefficient of these slides was similar to that of the slides that did not have notable volume differences. This indicates that the slides with differences in scarp and debris volume have been active in the Holocene along with the slides with expected volumes. Understanding how landslide dynamics and slope morphology during paraglacial conditions will be important going forward as glaciers retreat globally, creating new landslide risk.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 4

doi: 10.1130/abs/2026RM-410719

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