Our understanding of where landslide hazard and impact will be greatest is largely based on our knowledge of past events. Here, we present a method to supplement existing records of landslides in Great Britain by searching an electronic archive of regional newspapers. In Great Britain, the British Geological Survey (BGS) is responsible for updating and maintaining records of landslide events and their impacts in the National Landslide Database (NLD). The NLD contains records of more than 16,500 landslide events in Great Britain. Data sources for the NLD include field surveys, academic articles, grey literature, news, public reports and, since 2012, social media. We aim to supplement the richness of the NLD by (i) identifying additional landslide events, (ii) acting as an additional source of confirmation of events existing in the NLD and (iii) adding more detail to existing database entries. This is done by systematically searching the Nexis UK digital archive of 568 regional newspapers published in the UK. In this paper, we construct a robust Boolean search criterion by experimenting with landslide terminology for four training periods. We then apply this search to all articles published in 2006 and 2012. This resulted in the addition of 111 records of landslides events to the NLD over the two years investigated (2006 and 2012). We also find that we were able to obtain further information about landslide impact for 60-90% of landslide events identified from newspaper articles. Spatial and temporal patterns of additional landslides identified from newspaper articles are broadly in line with those existing in the NLD, confirming that the NLD is a representative sample of landsliding in Great Britain. This method could now be applied to more time periods and/or other hazards to add richness to databases and thus improve our ability to forecast future events based on records of past events.

No abstract

Abstract. Linking landslide size and frequency is important at both human and geological timescales for quantifying both landslide hazards and the effectiveness of landslides in the removal of sediment from evolving landscapes. The statistical behaviour of the magnitude-frequency of landslide inventories is usually compiled following a particular triggering event such as an earthquake or storm, and their statistical behaviour is often characterised by a power-law relationship with a small landslide rollover. The occurrence of landslides is expected to be influenced by the material properties of rock and/or regolith in which failure occurs. Here we explore the statistical behaviour and the controls of a secular landslide inventory (SLI) (i.e. events occurring over an indefinite geological time period) consisting of mapped landslide deposits and their underlying lithology (bedrock or superficial) across the United Kingdom. The magnitude-frequency distribution of this secular inventory exhibits an inflected power-law relationship, well approximated by either an inverse gamma or double Pareto model. The scaling exponent for the power-law scaling of medium to large landslides is α = −1.71 ± 0.02. The small-event rollover occurs at a significantly higher magnitude (1.0-7.0 × 10 −3 km 2 ) than observed in single-event landslide records (∼ 4 × 10 −3 km 2 ). We interpret this as evidence of landscape annealing, from which we infer that the SLI underestimates the frequency of small landslides. This is supported by a subset of data where a complete landslide inventory was recently mapped. Large landslides also appear to be under-represented relative to model predictions. There are several possible reasons for this, including an incomplete data set, an incomplete landscape (i.e. relatively steep slopes are under-represented), and/or temporal transience in landslide activity during emergence from the last glacial maximum toward a generally more stable late-Holocene state. The proposed process of landscape annealing and the possibility of a transient hillslope response have the consequence that it is not possible to use the statistical properties of the current SLI database to rigorously constrain probabilities of future landslides in the UK.

Establishing the provenance of mud, soil or other earth-derived particles found on items such as clothing, footwear or vehicles, can make a significant contribution to the intelligence and evidential phases of a forensic investigation. This paper reports the findings of a blind test case in which four experts in mineralogy, environmental particles, palynology and structural characterisation of organic matter at the molecular level were asked to provide information on the provenance of three soil samples from widely differing sites.The study demonstrated that combining multiple techniques and expert interpretations was very effective in the assessment of provenance for two out of the three study sites.At the other site, although the mineralogical analysis correctly identified the parent material to the level of the geological formation, some other lines of evidence proved to be potentially misleading. Clay mineralogy demonstrated a powerful potential to identify specific stratigraphic formations.Keywords: soil, palynology, mineralogy, particulates, lignin, TMAH, parent material 3The occurrence of earth-related particles such as minerals, pollen/spores and organic matter together with anthropogenic material on evidential items can help to establish their provenance, contributing to both intelligence and evidential stages of forensic investigations. For example, the search for the body of a murder victim in northern England during March 2005 was based on soil material believed to be from the body deposition site (1).The majority of soils across the UK (United Kingdom) landscape have developed over 10,000 years since the last ice age, with geochemical and mineralogical characteristics closely related to the parent material from which they formed (2). These parent materials include the underlying bedrock or any overlying Quaternary material such as glacial, riverine or windblown deposits. Individual parent material units vary in area from a few tens to hundreds of square kilometres. The proportions and characteristics of the dominant minerals (quartz, carbonates, clays) often differ sufficiently in the soils developed over these parent material types for them to be distinguished from one another at a regional scale. Hence, soil mineralogy could constrain potential source areas to a handful of regions based on expert interpretation and comparison with mineralogical databases and national maps showing the distributions of soils and parent material types.As the geology of the UK spans all the geological periods of the Earth's history with a diverse suite of parent rocks making up a relatively small landmass, it is likely to be wellsuited to the application of this approach. 4The provenance of a forensic sample might be further constrained if information is included on organic matter signatures of the lignin in plant fragments and pollen and spore assemblages. These two techniques are complementary as they provide information on vegetation types at and around the site, respectively. It may then be possible to ide...

The paper describes recent applications by the British Geological Survey (BGS) of the technique of mobile terrestrial LiDAR surveying to monitor various geomorphological changes on English coasts and estuaries. These include cliff recession, landslides and flood defences, and are usually sited at remote locations undergoing dynamic processes with no fixed reference points. Advantages, disadvantages and some practical problems are discussed. The role of GPS in laser scanning is described.