Scaling relationships for constant-volume snow avalanches

Snow Avalanches, Ice Avalanches and Glacier Surges

Mechanics of snow avalanches

The main problems of mechanics of snow avalanches are those of: (1) predicting avalanches, (2) avalanche motion, (3) the action of an avalanche upon obstacles, (4) the air wave, (5) the slow moving snow cover and its interaction with protective constructions and (6) the problem of artificial release of avalanches. This paper surveys the modern state of scientific knowledge about the nature of p...

Avalanches , Scaling and Coherent

We present a simple model of a dynamical system driven by externally-imposed coherent noise. Although the system never becomes critical in the sense of possessing spatial correlations of arbitrarily long range, it does organize into a stationary state characterized by avalanches with a power-law size distribution. We explain the behavior of the model within a time-averaged approximation, and di...

Reconstructing snow avalanches in the Southeastern Pyrenees

A regional study of snow avalanche processes was undertaken in the SE Pyrenees. Dendrogeomorphology was used to date and reconstruct large-scale snow avalanche events that occurred in the last four decades. Dendrochronological analyses yielded the dates of nine winters when avalanches occurred in the recent past in six studied avalanche paths. Some of these avalanches were already known, but ot...

Opening angle of loose-snow avalanches