An avalanche is a rapid, gravity-driven flow of snow, ice, and often entrained rock and debris that propagates downslope once the shear stress within a snowpack exceeds its shear strength. It emerges from mechanical instabilities in stratified snow layers, commonly at interfaces between weak layers and overlying cohesive slabs, triggered by loading, temperature gradients, or external perturbations. Avalanches can exhibit distinct flow regimes, including slab avalanches with brittle fracture and propagating crack fronts, loose-snow avalanches with point-release dynamics, and powder-snow avalanches characterized by turbulent, dilute suspensions. Their behavior is studied using snow mechanics, rheology, and fluid dynamics to model initiation, propagation, and runout.
A catastrophic flood in Nepal that left thousands missing began with a collapse of ice and rock high in the mountains—a warning that disaster planning must prepare for chains of hazards, not isolated events, experts say.
Environment
Sep 11, 2026
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Permafrost refers to permanently frozen ground. The rock is held together by ice, much like cement binds concrete. However, when the ice thaws, the ground becomes weak and unstable. During an earthquake, this can trigger ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 7, 2026
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On the morning of Aug. 26, a section of mountain near Langtang Lirung peak in Nepal suddenly collapsed.
Environment
Sep 1, 2026
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The catastrophic flood that killed hundreds of people in Nepal on Aug. 26, 2026, and left many more missing likely began with falling ice and rock crashing into the river below, but that wasn't the end of the disaster. Days ...
Environment
Aug 31, 2026
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The cause of the huge floods and debris flow on the border between Nepal and Tibet, which have caused hundreds of deaths, appears to have been an ice avalanche—the result of a huge piece of a glacier collapsing and cascading ...
Environment
Aug 31, 2026
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Even as rescuers worked through mud and debris Friday in areas devastated by a catastrophic flash flood along the Himalayan border between Nepal and China, authorities warned that a newly formed, overflowing lake could trigger ...
Environment
Aug 28, 2026
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The deadly flash flood in Nepal on Wednesday was likely caused by a huge chunk of a glacier that broke off and temporarily dammed a river, according to preliminary investigations by scientists. That may have led to the backed-up ...
Environment
Aug 27, 2026
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A huge piece of ice that fell thousands of meters from a glacier into a river below may have unleashed the disaster in Nepal and Tibet that killed at least 180 people.
Environment
Aug 27, 2026
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Can a crack be supersonic? Can the fracture that triggers an avalanche propagate faster than the limiting velocity predicted by classical fracture mechanics? The question remains the subject of debate within the scientific ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 5, 2026
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11
A study conducted at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris uses images from NASA's Dawn mission and a Bayesian inversion of the Hapke photometric model to analyze avalanches and ejecta deposits on the asteroid Vesta. ...
Planetary Sciences
Jun 29, 2026
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