Characterization of landslide and measurement of ground vibration period in the Salado-Paccha sector using GNSS equipment and refraction seismic testing

Catholic University of Cuenca ; Av. Américas y Humbolt, CP. 010101, Cuenca, Ecuador

^* Corresponding author: maromano90@est.ucacue.edu.ec

Abstract

A landslide is a soils movement that depending on its level can be a very risky event, causing from material losses to human lives in some occasions. It can occur naturally or by anthropogenic means, the main causes are usually high intensity rainfall, soils with poor geomechanical characteristics, considerable seismic movements, erosion, lack of vegetation cover, among others. Paccha is a parish where there are several active landslides that put its inhabitants and their material goods at risk. As a result, this research analyzes one of them with UTM17s, 728845,38 E 9679536,46 N coordinates, located in the El Salado sector, for its study it is intended to characterize it, measuring its displacement and velocity through a monitoring of 36 days in 3 data collection campaigns with GNSS equipment using the RTK method, in addition a seismic refraction test is used to measure the period of vibration of the soil at the site. The results obtained indicate that the soil in the sector is clay and silt of high plasticity, the slip is extremely slow, semi-deep, with lateral propagation and rotational geometry. The displacement between points is 4,14 cm while the velocity is 0,43 m/year, finally the vibration period corresponds to a value of 0,13s and the shear wave velocity Vs is 178,85, which is categorized as a type E soil.