Felix Pfluger

@felix-pfl.bsky.social

Alpine geomorphology, rock slides in the cryosphere and their release processes, rock/ice mechanics @TU Munich, Landslide Research Group, PhD researcher, M3OCCA Project.

Today's ice aprons delineate areas that are likely to become localized hotspots of future rockfall activity and possibly even large slope failures. Our new study explores thermo-hydro-mechanical feedback mechanisms, demonstrating their efficacy in preparing permafrost rock slope failures.

How ice apron loss and permafrost degradation promoted the Platteikogel rock slope failure: a thermo-mechanical reconstruction

Abstract. The Alpine cryosphere changes at unprecedented speed, affecting the thermal, hydrological, and mechanical state and behaviour of rock slopes. While numerous studies investigated singular dri...

esurf.copernicus.org

Ever wondered what a #glacier looks like from the inside? Last weekend our postdocs Christophe Ogier & Marin Kneib descended 60 m into a moulin on the #PlaineMorte glacier for surveying englacial melt channels. Photographer Pierre Jeanneret captured the stunning hidden world below ❄️🧗‍♂️🧊

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Crazy (horizontal) runup from the large landslide into Tracy Arm fjord, SE Alaska. This is 20 km out the fjord and the wave reached up to 400 m into this side valley. notice how the vegetation was only wetted for the most part (pixels still red) and only the mouth of the river is destroyed.

Tour Ronde (3793 m) north face used to be an entirely ice-covered slope not so long ago...! 🧊😰 See the situation this morning (📷 X. Cailhol) and in the 1960s (from famous Rebuffat's book 'les 100 plus belles...')

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Copied from AEC post on X: Check out these amazing photos of the Tracy Arm Landslide! Thank you to Jacek Macelko for sharing these images, taken on Tuesday, August 12 from 3,500 ft. The pale triangle of the landslide scar stands out. 🧪⚒️🪨 1/2

Picture taken by pilot Jacek Maselko. Shows the South Sawyer Glacier, and in the background is the scar in the mountain  that the landslide originated from Picture taken by pilot Jacek Maselko. This one shows a different angle of the mountain that the landslide originated from, and also the water in the fjord that is now filled with debris. The terminus of the glacier is also visible, and is covered with rock and debris. Picture taken by pilot Jacek Maselko. Another angle of the mountain that the landslide originated from, with a different view of the debris-filled fjord and the terminus of the glacier. The light-colored part of the mountain is the scar. Pilot states they were flying at about 3500 ft. Picture taken by pilot Jacek Maselko. Another angle of the scar on the mountainside and the debris-covered glacier terminus. Pilot was flying at about 3500 ft.

A new paper (Kharismalatri, Gomi & Sidle 2025) in the journal Natural Hazards uses the concepts of the inflow angle and the channel gradient to examine the behaviour of large landslides after failure. It show that those two measurements predict the behaviour of most slopes. eos.org/thelandslide...

The relationship between the inflow angle, and the channel gradient , from the study of large landslides by Kharismalatri, Gomi & Sidle (2025).

The #Glacier Loss Day is reached in Switzerland! From now on all melt that occurs on glaciers until October is unsustainable. This tipping point has only been reached so early in the record-shattering year 2022. Expect big ice loss due to the prolonged melt season and feedback effects

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We are losing climate records that we will never get back, and Human is entirely responsible for this! 🔥 🧊 Triangle du Tacul ice was dated in 2017 at 700 yr BP in surface and 6300 yr BP at 60 cm depth! And all melted to bedrock between 2022 and 2024! 😱 Source L. Ravanel/X. Cailhol 🙏

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[1/2] Geomorphology at Oberreintal (GER). Ancient rock slide deposits daming glacial shaped valley (> 200 000 m2, [47.41008 11.10601]). Headscarp @ middle left. Debris cones indicate high rockfall activity today. The mountaineering hut Oberreintalhütte (circel) is founded on the rock slide deposits.

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[2/2] Geomorphology at Oberreintal, Schüsselkarspitze in the middle left, geological unit ist Wetterstein limestone. Deposits of winter rockfall are deflected by morphology. Trace is marked by the reddish rock

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This morning @lastquake.bsky.social reports a magnitude 4.5 earthquake on the SE coast of #Greenland. www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake_i... This is probably not an earthquake, but rather a huge landslide in a fjord caused by thawing #permafrost. To be confirmed ...

Earthquake= Magnitude 4.5 - NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN - 2025-06-21 07:28:00.9 UTC

Earthquake information= Magnitude: 4.5, Region: NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN, Date time: 2025-06-21 07:28:00.9 UTC, Location: 64.5038 ; -39.8343, Depth: 10 km.

emsc-csem.org

Christopher Cartwright@chriscartwright.bsky.social · last yr.

#Greenland melting 19.06.2025 We are going parabolic Finally some #Climate action in the #cryosphere But the NEWS OF THE DAY is not this. You will need to wait 2 hours to find out #ClimateCrisis #cryosphere

[1/2] Warming permafrost promotes rock slope failures of preconditioned slopes by reducing mechanical properties such as shear strength, fracture toughness, and tensile strength of rock. Recent rock slides strongly influenced by permafrost warming are #Blatten (CH), #Fluchthorn (AT)

[2/2] Our model of the Fluchthorn rock slide in 2023 suggests failure upon permafrost temperatures approaching 0°C -> Modelled using laboratory deviated temperature-dependent shear parameters for discontinuities; failure planes are pre-defined by geology