Sackung in non-glaciated landscapes: spatial and temporal behavior of deep-seated gravitational slope deformations in Outer Western Carpathians

Sackung represents giant, long-term gravitational deformations of elevated ridges. Although its development in alpine landscapes is well-known, information about spatial distribution and temporal behaviour of this phenomenon in non-glaciated mountains is highly fragmentary. Recently launched high-resolution LIDAR topography for the flysch region of Outer Western Carpathians (Czech Republic) revealed, that sackung has been largely overlooked during decades of research and it surprisingly represents common feature of many mountain ridges. The substance of the project is to determine spatial distribution of sackung, its area-frequency relationships, chronology (based on 10Be, 14C, OSL and tree-rings) and impact on secondary/shallower mass movements in the region, which is considered as a prototype of non-glaciated, landslide-affected landscape. The project results will show the degree of the disruption of mountain ridges and antiquity of sackung features, i.e. important data for evaluating sackung as geohazard and its possible activation in conditions of recent climatic conditions.