Modelling the Influence of Geological Structures in Paleo Rock Avalanche Failures Using Field and Remote Sensing Data

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This work investigates the mechanism of a paleo rock avalanche. The topic is very interesting, but an effort must be made in order to improve the paper.

My main concern regards the numerical model built with UDEC. It is not clear if yours is a back-analysis with calibration of parameters or a modeling based on values obtained from testing. You should state this very clearly before showing any model. 

Also, language should be refined; many grammar errors can be found throughout the manuscript and the readability is often compromised.

In the following the list of my comments:

- line 179 and many others: you keep repeating "engineering-geology" survey, "engineering-geology" data. Please avoid this; use "traditional manual survey, non-contact survey, onsite survey, data...we are all aware that the topic concerns engineering geology.

- Table 3: Are these properties based on a laboratory testing campaign? Please add details on the selection of those values.

- Figure 4: in this figure the different lithologies are not visible: please add them or refer to figure 2 in order to make the reader understand what you mean.

- line 262: 3D model is not "extracted", since it is not a derived feature, but it is built/created based on terrestrial photogrammetry.

- Table 5: photogrammetry is a discipline for creating 3D models based on images, please use a different term for a survey based on 3D model created with photogrammetry (column 3). Spacing (column 5): is this a mean value? calculated based o a sample? please add details. Persistence (column 6): is this a class based on visual survey? please add details.

- line 275: did you perform point load tests or UCS tests? please add details.

Usually UCS is related to the intact rock, why do you put it in a table with discontinuity sets? Maybe you are confusing it with JCS. Please explain.

- Figure 8: this figure is not so clear. Please delete window boundaries for the sets concentration. Also, it would be better to show poles and contours (not only contours).

- line 307: Is this percentage calculated based on the total number of the surveyed planes of S0? Please add details.

- line 333: the number of ponts is not sufficient to describe the point cloud. Add the average point density (points/square meter)

- Figure 10: I suggest to rotate the view in order to have z-axis vertical. It would be much more realistic.

- lines 465-466: It is theory, not a result. Please delete the sentence.

- lines 466-469: You never mention density and accuracy of your model. This sentence is pretty useless.

- lines 462-520: The discussion section is not a real discussion of your results. The content should be put before the numerical modeling, in order to provide the reader with some more details to understand the mechanism.

In light of these comments, I suggest major revisions.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

This paper was interesting to review, especially the sensitivity analysis that you have performed. On the other hand, I must admit that I would not have used the term “Remote sensing” for the analysis you have realized with Google Earth images, also the resolution of the provided figure does not allow the reader to follow the discontinuities. There were no orthophoto available? Consider this as a minor remark.

I hope to see it published soon.

Kind regards

Please find below some suggestions:

L12: use RS instead of remote sensing since it was defined the line above.

L22-23: This sentence repeats a bit what it is mentioned in L16-19?

Fig 2: I suggest that you add on the profile 2 something to mention the beginning and the end and that you repeat it the profile graph. (eg A and B or NW (left) SE (right)). I do understand that this is obvious since the profile is along the slope but it is more a convention.

On the Profile 2 graph, provide a legend and unit for x,y axis (Altitude (m)…)

Table 1: If I am not mistaken, it would have been nice to order the Formation with the older one at the bottom.

L175-179: I suggest adding more explanation on how the extraction of the geological structures was realised since I do think that it would give the reader useful information on the process realised and the confidence he can have on the features extracted from this “automation”

Fig9a: Reverting the color scale could give a better image for the reader and would align with color scale of the hillshade? Worth to test.

Fig9d: Please provide a color scale

Fig12b: The river erosion stages legend can be removed.

L395….: it might be worth to provide the timesteps units. Also as a general comments you do not mention what are the precision of your simulation. Considering the variability of the inputs into your models, I am wondering if mentioning a displacement of 0.05 mm for H3 in the interval 2 has a physical meaning?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

 

Manuscript estimates causative factors of Lettopalena rock avalanche (Abruzzo, Italy) using geo-engineering and remote sensing methods.

Manuscript is very subjective with 23% of self citations in various configurations of authorship [18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35, 42]. But concerning landslides/rock avalanches in Apennines references are very limited. Do not understand if authors did not do enough research? Please make a review of references and list proper research works. Understand cosmopolitan point of view. Understand methodological point of view. However, methods presented are not innovative ones and authors of this manuscript are not the pioneers of any new methodology. Please consider that geodynamic phenomena and also these particular rock avalanches are described in such huge numbers of papers that excluding them looks bizarre to me. I treat it as an error. On the contrary authors referred very wide spectrum of works on: China located landslides [2,4,5,6, 33, 34], flood risk [7], ice-debris flow [8], cyclone [11], typhoon [12], , quarry[20], coast [22], machine learning [26], lignite mine [28], change detection [48], multi-sensor techniques [49]. earthquake [50], Iran located landslide [51], clays and humidity [53] (?)

It must be kept the reasonable rate of references on the site and methods. Of course, we can cite worldwide research but it must be balanced, otherwise the research has not a correct background. This balance is missed here. So the manuscript looks as so, so master thesis but if every master thesis should be published?

Another comment: structure of the manuscript is not ordered. Please reorder and reorganize manuscript.

Detailed comments:

1.       Please improve study area description. Please add geography.

2.       Line 100 - please provide reference. Was that the only one catastrophic event there? Please clarify.

3.       Fig. 1 – Authors showed sampling sites 1-6, where have readers a chance to follow them in the next sections? This is not clear. Readers can say that sites 1 and 4 are out of the scope. Please reorganize manuscript.

4.       Fig. 2 Please add reference of the geological map provided, please describe what DEM was used to present the relief. Please clarify what bizarre lines (1-4) authors presented. They are not even oriented.

5.       Fig. 2b (I suppose) Please clarify why authors showed profile number 2 and where author showed profile number 1? No legend provided, please provide the legend.

6.       Section 3 –Authors did not provide dates and any other details of collected data. Readers do not know when UAV mapping took place, what kind of craft was used, resolution, etc… Please provide details of data in this section. The same for in-situ measurements.

Subsections 3.1.-3.3 are not compatible with their counterparts in Results section. Please reorganize structure. These parts are chaotic.

7.       Figs. 6a and 6b are the same. No new info provided. Please plan the structure correctly. Dates missing and scaling problem? Please clarify.

8.       Fig.7. Please provide the date of Google Earth image. Authors did not mentioned about lineaments data in the previous section, please reorganize structure. In remote sensing, basic information should be first. Why this figure is placed in the middle of the results? Please clarify.

9.       Fig. 9 what DEM was used, please clarify.

10.   Fig. 11 Based on what measurements these profiles were constructed? Please clarify.

11.   Subsection 4.4 is not well ordered, please correct.

12.    Some parts of subsection 4.5 should be moved to section Methods otherwise this is not clear. River erosion problem is not clarified enough, not clearly presented. Please reorganize manuscript.

13.   Line 473 – low resolution – please clarify.

14.   Lines 477-479 – Authors used inconsistent nomenclature - please reorder manuscript.

15.   Line 481 – Rock avalanche model? Geological model? Numerical model? Please clarify and reorder manuscript.

16.   Fig.18 should be moved to results.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors replied to my comments quite satisfactorily and made changes accordingly. The paper quality and clarity improved.

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors improved the manuscript according to the comments. Please double check the text: vide e.g. line 580.