Evolution of landslides by means of Cs-137

Abstract

A new method for the study of some characteristics of the land movements it is presented in this work. The method is based on the measure of the radioactive isotope Cs-137 present in different points of a landslide. By means of this method, three recent landslides occurred in the Cantabrian range, Spain, have been studied. A total of fifteen samples of superficial deposit present, in and out of each landslide body were taken out to the analysis. For each sample, in order to obtain a profile of the Cs concentration, a measure of gamma spectrometry was taken off each 5 cm of deep. The result show important differences between the profiles and total concentration of each profile; these are related with their spatial distribution. These differences have been used to describe some landslide characteristics as age, evolution and possible affected area.