Curated, top-journal landslide-related papers sorted by publication year (newest first). This list is updated on a rolling basis.

Year	Journal	Title	Key Summary	Link
2026	Science Advances	Widespread abyssal turbidites record megathrust earthquake-triggered landslides and coseismic deformation in the Cascadia subduction zone	Integrated AUV/ROV bathymetry, subbottom profiles, and cores show that lower-slope earthquake-triggered landslides generate proximal mass-transport deposits that grade into abyssal turbidites recording Cascadia megathrust events. Recurrent failures imply persistent thrust-fold oversteepening and coseismic deformation of the outer accretionary wedge.	View Paper
2025	Science	Cascading land surface hazards as a nexus in the Earth system	This Review synthesizes progress and outlines a framework for understanding how land surface hazards interact and propagate as sediment cascades across Earth’s surface. It highlights human-timescale gaps under rapid climatic change and urban expansion, and emphasizes modeling, remote sensing, and critical zone science to quantify cascading hazards and improve resilience.	View Paper
2025	Science	The Sikkim flood of October 2023: Drivers, causes, and impacts of a multihazard cascade	This study details a catastrophic multi-hazard cascade initiated by a permafrost landslide into South Lhonak Lake, which triggered a massive glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) and subsequent dam failure along the Teesta River. By integrating satellite imagery, seismic data, and numerical modeling, the research highlights the critical need for enhanced early warning systems and climate-resilient infrastructure as warming temperatures increase the risk of such complex mountain disasters.	View Paper
2025	Science Advances	Overcoming the data limitations in landslide susceptibility modeling	This study develops a new method for assessing shallow landslide susceptibility based on a probabilistic morphometric analysis of topography, which bypasses the common limitations of data-driven models that rely on scarce or biased past landslide inventories. By requiring only widely available elevation data, the model identifies high-risk hillslopes based on their relative relief and gradient, demonstrating superior performance and feasibility for regions where traditional landslide data are unavailable.	View Paper
2025	Science Advances	Endo-exo framework for a unifying classification of episodic landslide movements: Implications for forecasting catastrophic failures	This study proposes a novel "endo-exo" theoretical framework to classify episodic landslide movements by capturing the interplay between exogenous stressors (e.g., rainfall) and endogenous damage-healing processes. The model identifies four distinct types of episodic dynamics and suggests that an increased frequency of medium-to-large velocities can serve as a precursor to catastrophic collapse, offering a new perspective for landslide forecasting.	View Paper
2025	Communications Earth & Environment	Size estimates of Earth's largest terrestrial landslides informed by topographic setting	Using Bayesian regression on 411 giant landslides (>1 km3), the study finds dominant topographic setting is the strongest control on maximum volume. Nearly two-thirds of total mapped volume occurs in volcanic and sedimentary rocks within 50 km of active faults, while broad climate and lithology are secondary controls.	View Paper
2025	Communications Earth & Environment	Buried North Sea landslide reveals the potential of major catastrophic landslides in rift settings	Broadband 3D seismic data identify the Vette landslide in the North Sea paleorift (~340 km2 area; ~300 km3 volume), produced by collapse of a >2.5 km-high fault-footwall crest and ~8 km translation on a low-angle detachment. It is interpreted as the largest known rift-setting landslide.	View Paper
2024	Nature Communications	Landslide topology uncovers failure movements	By extracting topological descriptors from 3D landslide geometry, the authors classify failure kinematics (slide, flow, fall, and complex combinations) rather than only mapped outlines. Cross-regional tests (Italy, US Pacific Northwest, Denmark, Turkey, and Wenchuan) achieve ~80-94% accuracy, improving movement-aware hazard modeling.	View Paper
2024	Nature Communications	Landslide hazard cascades can trigger earthquakes	Using a machine-learning earthquake catalog for the 2018 Tibetan case, the study shows seismicity (local magnitude <=2.6) rose significantly as landslide-dammed lakes filled and returned to background after breach. About 90% of events occurred where Coulomb stress increased from lake loading plus pore-pressure diffusion, evidencing bidirectional hazard triggering.	View Paper
2024	Nature Communications	Previously hidden landslide processes revealed using distributed acoustic sensing with nanostrain-rate sensitivity	Distributed acoustic sensing delivers nanostrain-rate measurements with dense spatial coverage, resolving creep heterogeneity and short-lived acceleration pulses that conventional point sensors miss. The results reveal previously hidden spatiotemporal strain evolution relevant to the transition from long-term creep toward rapid failure.	View Paper
2024	Science Advances	Seasonal slow slip in landslides as a window into the frictional rheology of creeping shear zones	At two creeping landslides, observed velocity-pore-pressure relations are quantitatively explained by velocity-strengthening friction, consistent with laboratory measurements for clay-rich materials. The work shows seasonal slow-slip transients can arise from effective-stress modulation without requiring near-critical velocity-weakening behavior.	View Paper
2024	Science	A rockslide-generated tsunami in a Greenland fjord rang Earth for 9 days	This study identifies a massive climate-driven rockslide in Greenland that triggered a 200-meter tsunami and a 9-day global seismic resonance. The findings highlight how thinning glaciers are destabilizing polar slopes, creating unprecedented, long-duration geohazards that can be detected worldwide.	View Paper
2024	Science Advances	Controls on fluvial sediment evacuation following an earthquake-triggered landslide: Observations from LiDAR time series	Thirteen airborne LiDAR surveys track 5 years of channel adjustment after ~6.6 million m3 of Kaikoura coseismic debris entered a Hapuku tributary. Sediment storage, bed armoring, and valley-width contrasts delay and diffuse downstream transfer, implying long-lived sediment-wave effects and a prolonged hiatus in bedrock incision.	View Paper
2023	Communications Earth & Environment	Landslide susceptibility modeling by interpretable neural network	An interpretable additive neural-network framework (superposable neural network) improves landslide susceptibility modeling while preserving explicit factor contributions and interactions. Tested with inventories from three regions in the easternmost Himalaya, it highlights slope-precipitation interaction and hillslope aspect as key controls.	View Paper
2023	Nature Communications	Deep learning forecast of rainfall-induced shallow landslides	A deep-learning framework trained and tested with two decades of Italian rainfall and landslide records shows that rainfall can effectively anticipate timing and location of shallow landslides over large areas, supporting operational forecasting with rain measurements and quantitative weather forecasts.	View Paper
2022	Nature Geoscience	Acceleration of a large deep-seated tropical landslide due to urbanization feedbacks	The paper shows that urban reorganization of surface and subsurface drainage can amplify pore-pressure fluctuations in a deep-seated tropical landslide and accelerate long-term movement. Roads, housing, and stormwater infrastructure are identified as a human-hydrology feedback that progressively lowers slope stability.	View Paper
2022	Nature Geoscience	High Mountain Asia hydropower systems threatened by climate-driven landscape instability	High Mountain Asia's hydropower systems face increasing threats from climate-driven landscape instabilities, such as glacier detachments, permafrost thaw, and catastrophic outburst floods, which can cause dam failures and reservoir sedimentation. While the region has massive untapped hydropower potential, the trend of building new projects closer to hazard-prone high-altitude glacial areas necessitates a shift toward forward-looking designs and sustainable sediment management to ensure long-term resilience.	View Paper
2022	Nature Communications	Inversions of landslide strength as a proxy for subsurface weathering	Three-dimensional stability inversion of 7330 western Oregon landslides shows a nonlinear failure envelope and systematic exchange between frictional and cohesive resistance with increasing landslide thickness. The thickness-dependent strength partition is proposed as a proxy for subsurface weathering architecture.	View Paper
2021	Nature Communications	The mechanics of landslide mobility with erosion	This work develops an energy-budget framework for erosive landslides, identifying when entrainment-induced energy and mass gains increase versus reduce mobility. The model provides a mechanical basis for predicting runout amplification in events where erosion strongly modifies landslide volume and momentum.	View Paper
2021	Nature Communications	Submarine landslide megablocks show half of Anak Krakatau island failed on December 22nd, 2018	Integrated SAR, aerial imagery, and marine geophysics resolve both subaerial and submarine components of the 22 Dec 2018 collapse, indicating roughly half of Anak Krakatau failed. Submarine megablock geometry constrains collapse volume and improves reconstruction of the tsunami source mechanism.	View Paper
2021	Nature Communications	Global connections between El Nino and landslide impacts	By linking global landslide-impact records with ENSO variability, the study shows stronger El Nino phases systematically shift where and when damaging rainfall-induced landslides occur. It identifies regional hotspots, including parts of Southeast Asia and Latin America, where impact changes cannot be explained by seasonal rainfall climatology alone.	View Paper
2021	Science	A massive rock and ice avalanche caused the 2021 disaster at Chamoli, Indian Himalaya	Satellite, seismic, modeling, and video evidence show that ~27 x 10^6 m3 of rock and glacier ice collapsed from Ronti Peak, then transformed into an exceptionally mobile debris flow. The cascade transported boulders >20 m, scoured valley walls up to 220 m, and devastated downstream hydropower infrastructure.	View Paper
2020	Nature Communications	Four-dimensional surface motions of the Slumgullion landslide and quantification of hydrometeorological forcing	Hybrid remote-sensing observations reconstruct 4D kinematics of the ~1 km2 Slumgullion landslide (typical motion ~10-20 mm/day) from 2011-2018. The analysis quantifies how hydrometeorological forcing modulates spatially variable displacement, providing a benchmark for process-based interpretation of long-lived slow landslides.	View Paper
2020	Science Advances	Long-term patterns of hillslope erosion by earthquake-induced landslides shape mountain landscapes	Lake Paringa geochemical provenance shows that four major earthquakes over ~1000 years repeatedly shifted erosion to higher elevations. Postseismic intervals sourced sediment from a median ~722 m elevation (43% of core sediment), versus ~459 m during interseismic periods, demonstrating persistent earthquake control on topographic evolution.	View Paper
2020	Science Advances	Rainfall triggers more deep-seated landslides than Cascadia earthquakes in the Oregon Coast Range, USA	Mapping 9938 deep-seated landslides and roughness-based dating indicate that fewer than half of failures in the last 1000 years were coseismic. Landslide frequency increases with mean annual precipitation, but not with modeled peak ground acceleration or distance to the Cascadia megathrust.	View Paper
2019	Science Advances	Quantifying landslide frequency and sediment residence time in the Nepal Himalaya	A landslide-erosion model coupled with thermochronologic age distributions from repeat river-sediment samples shows observed age shifts can be explained by stochastic landsliding. Results imply sediment residence time in the studied steep Nepal catchment is short, likely <=50 years, indicating rapid evacuation.	View Paper
2016	Science Advances	Anthropocene rockfalls travel farther than prehistoric predecessors	Comparing 2011 Christchurch rockfalls (n=285) with prehistoric deposits (n=1049), the authors show a distinct modern subset (n=26) traveled >150 m farther than prehistoric counterparts. Modeling and radiocarbon evidence link this runout increase to historic deforestation, highlighting a human-induced shift in rockfall hazard expression.	View Paper
2014	Nature Communications	Frictional velocity-weakening in landslides on Earth and on other planetary bodies	The study proposes that effective friction can decrease with increasing slip velocity in large granular landslides, helping explain anomalously long runout and high mobility. This velocity-weakening framework is used to interpret landslide behavior across Earth and other planetary surfaces.	View Paper
2013	Nature Geoscience	The landslide story	This commentary on the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake emphasizes that heightened post-earthquake landslide frequency and secondary hazards such as river damming and flooding require sustained attention beyond the mainshock.	View Paper
2013	Science	Simple Scaling of Catastrophic Landslide Dynamics	From teleseismic inverse modeling of 29 catastrophic landslides, the study shows source-mass length scale is a primary control on event dynamics. Coupled with satellite constraints, the force histories recover duration, momentum, energy loss, mass, and runout within a simple, scalable acceleration framework.	View Paper
2012	Nature Geoscience	Landslides limit mountain relief	This News & Views highlights evidence that landslide erosion can rapidly adjust to uplift and incision forcing, maintaining near-threshold hillslope angles and constraining long-term mountain relief growth. It frames landsliding as a first-order regulator in actively uplifting terrain.	View Paper
2012	Nature Geoscience	Landslide erosion coupled to tectonics and river incision	Mapping >15,000 landslides in the eastern Himalaya, the authors show landslide erosion rates co-vary with both tectonically driven uplift and fluvial incision. The results provide direct support for threshold-hillslope behavior and tight coupling among river incision, slope steepening, and landslide export.	View Paper
2011	Nature Geoscience	Mass wasting triggered by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake is greater than orogenic growth	Using remote sensing and volumetric analysis, the study concludes that landslide mass wasting triggered by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake removed more material than was added by coseismic uplift, implying net short-term erosional lowering.	View Paper
2010	Nature Geoscience	Landslide erosion controlled by hillslope material	A broad landslide-geometry analysis shows soil-based landslides are generally less voluminous than bedrock failures and refines area-volume scaling for volume estimation, demonstrating strong material control on inferred landslide erosion.	View Paper
2009	Nature Geoscience	Landslide movement in southwest Colorado triggered by atmospheric tides	Field observations and modeling at Slumgullion show daily displacement is preferentially synchronized with atmospheric diurnal low tides. The study identifies atmospheric-pressure loading as a trigger that modulates shear-zone effective stress and initiates measurable landslide motion.	View Paper
2004	Science	Dynamics of Slow-Moving Landslides from Permanent Scatterer Analysis	Permanent-scatterer InSAR resolves slow landslide range-change rates of 5-7 mm/yr (equivalent downslope velocities ~27-38 mm/yr). Motion peaks during wet seasons and reached ~11 mm/yr range change during the 1997-1998 El Nino, linking acceleration to hydrologically driven pore-pressure rise.	View Paper
1997	Science	Hillslope Evolution by Bedrock Landslides	A physical analog model demonstrates that frequent small bedrock slides generate irregular hillslopes with persistent steep toes and headscarps, periodically reset by infrequent large failures. The work argues such morphology can emerge from intrinsic landslide-driven evolution without requiring external forcing changes.	View Paper
1988	Science	Catastrophic Landslide Deposits in the Karakoram Himalaya	Analysis of the 1986 Bualtar-area catastrophic deposits (~20 x 10^6 m3) documents rapid disaggregation, abundant fine material, and signatures consistent with intense frictional heating during emplacement onto glacierized terrain. The case provides a classic field basis for high-mobility rock-avalanche mechanics in high mountains.	View Paper
1987	Science	Real-Time Landslide Warning During Heavy Rainfall	This paper presents an operational prototype that combined susceptibility mapping, rainfall-landslide thresholds, telemetered rain-gauge networks, and weather forecasts for Bay Area warning. During the 12-21 Feb 1986 storms (~800 mm rain), it successfully anticipated the timing of major landslide activity.	View Paper
1979	Science	Earthquake-Caused Landslides: A Major Disturbance to Tropical Forests	The study shows earthquakes can denude very large tropical-forest areas (e.g., ~54 km2 in Panama, ~130 km2 in New Guinea). In high-seismicity settings, repeated earthquake-triggered landslides can rival treefall as a dominant long-term disturbance process controlling forest succession.	View Paper
1966	Science	Sherman Landslide, Alaska	Following the 27 March 1964 earthquake, ~3 x 10^7 m3 of rock fell ~600 m and then traveled ~5 km at high speed across the nearly level Sherman Glacier near Cordova. The event remains a benchmark case for extreme long-runout rockslide behavior over glacier surfaces.	View Paper