• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.38 no.3 s.172
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• pp.305-317
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• 2005

This study addresses the preliminary results of rock slope stability analyses including hazard assessments for slope failure conducted on the selected sections of rural road cut slope which are about 4 km long. The study area is located in the Mt. Chuntae northeast of Busan and mainly composed of Cretaceous rhyolitic ash-flow tuff', fallout tuff, rhyolitc and andesite. The volcanic rock mass in the area has a number of discontinuities that produce a potentially unstable slope, as the present cut slope is more than 70 degrees in most of the slope sections. Discontinuity geometry data were collected at selected 8 scanline sections and analyzed to estimate important discontinuity geometry parameters to perform rock slope kinematic and block theory analyses. Kinematic analysis for plane sliding has resulted in maximum safe slope angles greater than $65^{\circ}$ for most of the discontinuities. For most of the wedges, maximum safe cut slope angles greater than $45^{\circ}$ were obtained. Maximum safe slope angles greater than 80" were obtained fur most of the discontinuities in the toppling case. The block theory analysis resulted in the identification of potential key blocks (type II) in the SL4, SL5, SL6 and SL8 sections. The chance of sliding taking place through a type ll block under a combined gravitational and external loading is quite high in the investigated area. The results support in-field observations of a potentially unstable slope that could become hazardous under external forces. The results obtained through limit equilibrium slope stability analyses show how a stable slope can become an unstable slope as the water pressure acting on joints increases and how a stable slope under Barton's shear strength criterion can fail as the worst case scenario of using Mohr-Coulomb criterion.

• The Journal of the Petrological Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.157-169
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• 2019

Pseudotachylytes, produced by frictional heating during seismic slip, provide information that is critical to understanding the physics of earthquakes. We report the results of occurrence, structural characteristics, scanning electron microscopic observation and geochemical analysis of pseudotachylytes, which is presumed to have formed after the Late Cretaceous in outcrops of the Paleoproterozoic granitic gneiss on the Bulil waterfall of the Jirisan area, Yeongnam massif, Korea. Fault rocks, which are the products of brittle deformation under the same shear stress regime in the study area, are classified as pseudotachylyte and foliated cataclasite. The occurrences of pseudotachylyte identified on the basis of thickness and morphology are fault vein-type and injection vein-type pseudotachylyte. A number of fault vein-type pseudotachylytes occur as thin (as thick as 2 cm) layers generated on the fault plane, and are cutting general foliation and sheared foliation developed in granitic gneiss. Smaller injection vein-type pseudotachylytes are found along the fault vein-type pseudotachylytes, and appear in a variety of shapes based on field occurrence and vein geometry. At a first glance fault vein-type seudotachylyte looks like a mafic vein, but it has a chemical composition almost identical to the wall rock of granitic gneiss. Also, it has many subrounded clasts which consist predominantly of quartz, feldspar, biotite and secondary minerals including clay minerals, calcite and glassy materials. Embayed clasts, phenocryst with reaction rim, oxide droplets, amygdules, and flow structures are also observed. All of these evidences indicate the pseudotachylyte formed due to frictional melting of the wall rock minerals during fault slip related to strong seismic faulting events in the shallow depth of low temperature-low pressure. Further studies will be conducted to determine the age and mechanical aspect of the pseudotachylyte formation.