Modelling Creeping and Catastrophic Failure of Thermomechanically Driven Landslides

Frictional heating of the slip zone is a possible explanation for why some catastrophic landslides moved so fast and so far. The transition from a creeping phase to catastrophic collapse governed by frictional heating is also a pertinent problem: what governs it and why does it occur in some landslides but not others? Here we consider the possibility that frictional heating combined with non-linear velocity-dependent friction hardening suffices to explain both phenomena as well as the transition. The paper outlines the relevant theoretical considerations and a numerical treatment. It discusses the integration of the governing equations with adequate temporal resolution for both regimes and the assumed location of the far boundaries, which needs to strike a balance between accuracy and cost.