Landslides; slope stability; landslide causes and triggers; landslide geomorphology; landslide erosion; landslide-related sedimentary environments; fall and topple; slide; spread; flow; slope deformation; landslide-dammed lakes; landslide sag ponds

Landslides are downslope movements of soil or rock material forced primarily by gravity and triggered mostly by heavy rainfall events, earthquakes and anthropogenic activities. Terrestrial landslides encompass a wide range of volumes (~10-1–1010 m3) and velocities (~10-7–103 mm s-1) and include a complex spectrum of slope movements such as falls, topples, slides, spreads, flows and slope deformations. Responsible for thousands of fatalities and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage annually, landslides are perceived as an especially important natural hazard. However, landslides are also powerful geological agents shaping hillslope morphology, lowering drainage divides and transferring debris into river channels. Landslide-related sediments can be categorized as either primary or secondary. Primary landslide sediments are those that have been deposited directly by slope movements. They include a wide range of types from coherent slides or spread blocks with little internal deformation, retaining the original structure of the parent rock, to heavily fragmented materials deposited by debris flows, falls or rock avalanches. Secondary landslide sediments are those that have been deposited by fluvial, lacustrine or biogenic processes in depocenters originating from terrain modifications by landslide emplacement. Terrain modifications include landslide-dammed lakes and fens or bogs situated within depressions (e.g., sag ponds) on landslide bodies. As such, primary and secondary landslide sediments provide important sedimentary archives and valuable proxy information for the understanding of Quaternary landscape changes.