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The Holocene
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The Beinn Alligin rock avalanche, NW Scotland: cosmogenic 10Be dating, interpretation and significance

Colin K. Ballantyne

School of Geography and Geosciences, University of St Andrews, Fife KY 16 9AL, Scotland, UK ckb{at}st-and.ac.uk

J. O. Stone

Department of Earth and Space Sciences and Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington, Box 351310, Seattle, W A 98195-1310, USA

A tongue of very coarse rockslide debris that extends 1.25km downvalley below Beinn Alligin in NW Scotland has been variously interpreted as a glacier-cored rock glacier, landslide debris redistributed by glacier ice or an excess-runout landslide. Exposure dating with cosmogenic 10Be demonstrates that the the debris mass was emplaced at 3950±320 yr BP, and therefore was not associated with glacier ice. Calculations based on frictional considerations imply that the feature is an excess-runout rock avalanche (sturzstrom) deposit. The morphological characteristics of the deposit appear consistent with movement by grainflow or fragmental flow. Failure is inferred to reflect time-dependent paraglacial stress release and consequent propagation of an internal joint network, but may have been triggered by seismic activity. The late-Holocene age of failure implies persistence of the eOEects of paraglacial stress release over a time-scale of several millennia.

Key Words: Rock avalanche • cosmogenic isotope dating • Beryllium-10 • excess runout • grainflow • paraglacial stress release • Scotland

The Holocene, Vol. 14, No. 3, 448-453 (2004)
DOI: 10.1191/0959683604hl720rr
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