Impact of Boone fault fracturing on landslide hazards in Watauga County, North Carolina

The high concentration of landslides in Watauga County, North Carolina has been suggested to be the result of uplift in the southern Appalachians, related to the recently identified active Boone fault. Previous studies have modeled landslide susceptibility in the county and the kinematics of rock falls near the fault. In this study, I further explore how the Boone fault and associated parallel lineaments in Watauga County influence landslide hazards. Using a point-alignment-detection algorithm and other analyses, I determined that large-scale, WNW-trending lineaments do not have a significant control on the location of landslides. This finding suggests that while the large lineaments affect the entire region by breaking up the bedrock and enhancing weathering, especially where they cross the Blue Ridge Escarpment, they are not related to landslide hazards at a smaller scale. However, a preference for landslides to form on southeast-dipping slopes indicates that bedrock fabric does have some control on landslide locations. At the outcrop scale, I took field measurements of planar fractures and foliation at seven road cuts along US-321 south of the Boone fault to assess the impact of these small scale structures on rock slope stability. Kinematic analysis indicated that while all are at risk of failure, southeastern-facing slopes are especially hazardous where foliation is intersected by pervasive fractures, including those associated with the Boone fault.Bachelor of Scienc