Sensitive clays are leached marine clays that may change from a relatively stiff and brittle material into a viscous liquid mass when remolded. Sensitive clays are known for their potential for large landslides, which poses a serious risk to human lives, infrastructure, and surrounding ecosystems within their reach. There are number of interesting unsolved issues related to landslide in sensitive clays, however, in my presentation I will specifically focus on some ongoing research related to these: 

(a)          High quality sampling: Sensitive clays are prone to sample disturbance, especially when sampled using tube samplers. On the contrary, block sampling is among the best methods of collecting high quality samples of sensitive clays. However, even block samples may fail to capture the true and unique response of sensitive clay if they are not sampled and handled properly. For instance, stress relief, transportation effects, storage procedure time and testing procedures may lead to an inaccurate response.

(b)          Post failure movements: Runout of sensitive clay debris are occasionally fast moving as it may involve massive soil volumes of the order of millions of cubic metres. I will present an effort that is being made in Norway to develop a numerical tool to simulate runout of sensitive clay debris. The flow behaviour of sensitive clays is approximated using Herchel-Belkley rhehology. In my presentation, I will show results from the back calculations of some selected cases.