The spectacular Mam Tor landslip, near Castleton, Derbyshire, formed over 3000 years ago on an oversteepened slope left after the last ice age. A section of the Namurian Edale mudstones and overlying Mam Tor sandstones has collapsed, leaving an 80 m high scar on the eastern side of Mam Tor. The slip is about 750 m long and nearly 300 m wide and has the old main road from Manchester to Sheffield built across it. The slipped mass is in a state of year-on-year creep motion, which over the 190 years since the construction of the highway has led to extensive damage to the road, culminating in its closure in 1979. Since 1996 we have carried out annual monitoring by electronic distance measurement of the movement of a network of some 30 stations on the slipped mass. The average movement rate of the whole mass is about 10 cm a
−1
, with the central region moving significantly faster, at almost 50 cm a
−1
. Thus substantial readjustments of mass are taking place within the landslip. Local vertical displacements are systematically related to horizontal offsets, and the ratio of the two allows inference of the local attitude of the basal slip surface. The development of surface morphological features (pressure ridges and irregular topography, shear offsets on the highway, bulging of the road surface) reflects the lateral variations in displacement rate. Comparison of our survey of the present-day road position with that recorded in the topographical survey of 1880 shows a total 40 m downhill displacement of the highway over 122 years. This is consistent with extrapolation of our measured displacement rates back to 1880. Displacement rates within this period are, however, clearly higher than during the past 3000 years. There is a fairly clear correlation between vertical and horizontal displacement rates and annual variations in rainfall, with accelerated displacements following winter rainfall above a critical threshold level. Using survey points to define nodal points of a network of triangles, we have analysed the distribution of strain within the slipped mass. This revealed a pattern of continuous strain variations comparable with that found in flowing glaciers. In the lower part of the slip, horizontal strains are contractional and triangle areas are decreasing, causing some uplift of the ground relative to the general downhill flow on the basal slip surface. In the uphill part, strains are extensional and triangle areas are increasing. The new data allow an estimate of the time-dependent rheological behaviour of the sheared mudstone in the basal shear zone. The shear stress vs. shear strain rate relationship is very non-linear, with significant shear strain rates occurring only at shear stress levels within 10% of that required for rapid (catastrophic) shearing.
Conventional experiments designed to investigate the mechanical properties of polycrystalline geological materials are generally restricted to measurements of whole-rock properties. However, when comparing the measurements with theoretical models, it is frequently essential to understand how the deformation is accommodated at the grain-scale. This is particularly true for polymineralic rocks because in this case most theories express the whole-rock properties as some function of the properties of their constituent minerals, and hence the contribution which each phase makes to those properties must be measured if the theories are to be fully assessed. The penetrating nature of neutrons offers a method of addressing this problem. By performing deformation experiments in the neutron beam-line and collecting neutron diffraction patterns at different applied loads, the lattice parameters of all the mineral phases present may be determined as a function of load. The elastic strain experienced by each phase is then easily determined. Moreover, the strain in different lattice directions is also obtained. From this information a wide range of problems relevant for the characterization of the elastic and plastic deformation behaviour of polymineralic geological materials can be explored. An experimental technique for carrying out such experiments is described, and its validity is demonstrated by showing that the results obtained from deforming an elastically isotropic olivine + magnesiowüstite sample agree, to within very tight bounds, with the behaviour predicted by theory for elastically isotropic composites.
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