Mass Movement
Definition
The downslope displacement of soil, sediment, or rock under gravity, including slow creep, debris flows, and shallow landslides. All can relocate buried remains.
- Driving force
- Gravity acting on soil, sediment, or rock
- Common forms
- Creep, debris flows, shallow landslides
- Speed range
- From near-imperceptible creep to rapid flows
- Forensic relevance
- Can relocate buried remains from the original burial site
Common questions
How does mass movement complicate a body-recovery search?+
A search grid built from a witness account or last-known location can miss the remains entirely if slope failure has carried them downhill, so investigators need a geomorphological read of the terrain before fixing search boundaries.
How can investigators tell a burial site has been affected by mass movement?+
Signs include tension cracks or hummocky ground upslope, tilted vegetation, and displaced soil horizons that no longer match the surrounding stratigraphy, all of which point to post-burial ground movement rather than a static scene.
Related terms
- Geomorphology
- The branch of Earth science that studies landform origin, classification, and the physical processes that create and modify surface relief over time.
- Grave Subsidence
- The formation of a shallow depression above a clandestine burial as backfill compacts and organic matter decomposes, creating a micro-topographic anomaly detectable...
- Hydraulic Sorting
- The differential transport of skeletal elements by flowing water based on their size, density, and hydrodynamic shape. Small flat bones travel furthest;...
- Karst
- Terrain formed on soluble rock, typically limestone or dolomite, characterised by sinkholes, dolines, caves, and underground drainage. Surface material can enter the...
- Terrain Ruggedness Index (TRI)
- A raster-based metric that quantifies local elevation variability by summing the absolute difference between a central grid cell and all adjacent cells....