USE OF LANDSLIDES FOR PALEOSEISMIC ANALYSIS

In many environments, landslides preserved in the geologic record can be analyzed to determine the likelihood of seismic triggering. If evid ence indicates that a seismic origin is likely for a landslide or grou p of landslides, and if the landslides can be dated, then a paleo-eart hquake can be inferred, and some of its characteristics can be estimat ed. Such paleoseismic landslide studies thus can help reconstruct the seismic history of a site or region. In regions that contain multiple seismic sources and in regions where surface faulting is absent, paleo seismic ground-failure studies are valuable tools in hazard and risk s tudies that are more concerned with shaking hazards than with interpre tation of the movement histories of individual faults. Paleoseismic la ndslide analysis involves three steps: (1) identifying a feature as a landslide, (2) dating the landslide, and (3) showing that the landslid e was triggered by earthquake shaking. This paper addresses each of th ese steps and discusses methods for interpreting the results of such s tudies by reviewing the current state of knowledge of paleoseismic lan dslide analysis.