Jan Beutel
@janbeutel
Passionate about mountains, cryosphere, natural hazards and technology to help with all that adaptation before us, professor @uniinnsbruck, UIAGM mountain guide
Surreal. July 19, 2003 - just four days after the big rockfall on the Hoernliridge I climbed Matterhorn for the first time. And then we thought it looks exceptionally barren and dry but in reality the Zmutt Rigde was still fully ice covered...
Across the entire European Alps large high-alpine mass movements are increasing. Check out the Observational Seismic Catalog of Alpine Rockfalls (OSCAR) to dive into the details. If you have data to contribute, contact us: oscar.uibk.ac.at
Across the Alps large landslides (at higher elevations) are becoming an increasing concern. [3/3]
In contrast to lowlands, in mountains permafrost (change) is occurring above our heads [W. Haeberli]. And in steep topography, change frequently results in erosion. [2/3]
As temperatures rise it is not only glaciers that react to climate change in high-mountain areas. Snow and ice melting away create completely new landscapes. What was long covered is now laying bare. [1/3]
The Matterhorn is just bare, hot rock, temperatures at Solvay 4000 m asl are way up in the positive range for over a month with no cooling in sight. Where will this take us?
Of course this is many magnitudes smaller than #Blatten and the Klein Nesthorn ridge collapse. But hey, the GNSS monitoring technology developed here truly delivered and consequently lives were saved. Congrats team: @uniinnsbruck.bsky.social @slfdavos.bsky.social @rwth.bsky.social @tum.de
Super stoked our Matterhorn-Tower-Collapse paper is finally out @egu-esurf.bsky.social. Read all about what it takes to be able to now compute in simulation how thawing and fluid water availability influences real rock slope instabilities at high altitude: doi.org/10.5194/esur...
The evac was based on pre-failure analysis of an imminent, very large rockfall. An in-situ GNSS sensor installed on friday 16th on the ridge as well as a first large rockfall caused the evac decision monday. Fun fact, the GNSS fell with one of the first rockfall events monday afternoon.
After a full day of non stop interviews on rockfall, glaciers, permafrost and Valais natural hazard management it’s nice to end the day in a peaceful mountain setting. Why is it that despite how many times you explain that rocks fall because of this climate thingy they still put it in the headlines?
All these events register nicely on the map. This is the biggest rockfall event and the seismic signal geolocates just at the base of the ridge. Also the geological situation and the permafrost question is illustrated (darker violet/blue means permafrost is more likely than yellow).
Another magnitude 1.0 event was registered yesterday at 2025-05-29 12:34 in #Blatten. In the line of the 15 events registered over the past two weeks this one parks in at a moderate scale. And just another reminder that the mountain has not yet reached an equilibrium state yet.
Swiss Seismological Survey published a nice overview plot of the earth shaking and wobbling as response to first a series of rockfalls/rockslides onto the Birchgletscher and then finally more and more mumbling and rumbling leading to the final break-off.
The Birchgletscher collapse shook the Matterhorn! Not really a surprise but a fun fact that the collapse of the Birchgletscher is clearly visible at our high-altitude seismic station Solvay 4003 m a.s.l. up on the Hörnliridge (bottom left).
So what you are describing is the start of the failure process, then it takes some time until the sliding and tumbling creates enough energy for the big signal (the impacts downstream). This is the details from SED
A long series of similar rockfall/rockslide events in Switzerland now has another BIG dot in the upper right hand corner:
Swiss Seimological service reports this event as M=3.1 in a very quick first analysis, Cengalo was M=3.0...
What an inaugural post on bsky.app. A (the) major glacier collapse at Bichgletscher/Kleines Nesthorn.