ABSTRACT
The recent Canterbury, New Zealand Earthquake Sequence triggered many thousands of rockfalls, unfortunately resulting in both human and capital losses. These rockfalls damaged motorways, residential dwellings, and commercial structures. Eleven 3D terrestrial laser scan surveys were collected at several rockslope sites throughout Christchurch to document rockfall activity as well as assess the post-earthquake stability of the slopes. This unique dataset spans five years and encompasses several major earthquake events. These data were processed using a recently developed clustering algorithm to detect individual rockfall events and generate magnitude-frequency curves of volume distributions. These magnitude-frequency curves show trends of an increased rate of rockfall activity after the sizeable earthquakes, which gradually decreases to normal rates with time. Ultimately, this analysis provides some of the most detailed quantitative information of post-seismic rockfall activity on cliffs available to date.
