Flexural toppling and the development of uphill-facing scarps along the Bedretto valley, Swiss Alps

Uphill-facing scarps develop in the central Swiss Alps, particularly along the Upper Rhone valley, the Urseren valley, the Upper Rhine valley, and Bedretto valley. It has been argued whether they have gravitational origin, tectonic origin, or differential uplift after the deglaciation. We made geological survey and topographic interpretation in the Bedretto valley, in which the Ticino River flows from the west-southwest to east-northeast. The Bedretto valley slopes have shoulders on both sides of the valley at elevations of 1500 to 1900 m, below which is a lower U-shaped valley. Uphill-facing scarps develop more on the southern side slopes of the Bedretto valley, where is underlain mainly by mica schist of the Bedretto zone, than on the northern side slopes, where is underlain mainly by gneiss and slate. In addition, they develop much more on slopes higher than the slope shoulders, and the uphill-facing scarps on the lower U-shaped valley are much smaller in scale. Tributary valleys on the south side of the Bedretto valley go down into this lower U-shaped valley from the southeast with intervening ridges, and we surveyed along the valleys of Ri di Cristallina, Ri di Valleggio, and Val Cavagnolo. We found that steeply-dipping schistosity in the ridges is toppled valleyward with brittle fractures along the hinge zones, which are approximately along or slightly higher than the tributary valley bottom. Rock mass as thick as 300 m thus toppled. Flexural toppling of mica schist developed uphill-facing scarps, which were mostly along high-angle faults, some of which were recognized to have brittle crush zones. The flexural toppling generated extension field in the upper ridges, where rock mass apparently settled down along normal faults. The reason why the northern side slopes of the Bedretto valley have much smaller uphill facing scarps may be due to the rocks are mainly gneiss and also due to the numbers of faults are possibly much less than in the southern slopes . The facts that uphill facing scarps are mainly developed above the lower U-shaped valleys may be related to the longer time intervals of the exposure of slopes higher than the slope breaks to the atmosphere during the glacial age.