With climate change taking its toll on Earth, rock avalanches and landslides have become more common in high mountain ranges over the last decade.
The collapses are caused by melting glaciers and permafrost, which remove the glue that binds steep mountain slopes together.
However, the worse part may be to come. Thinning glaciers on volcanoes could destabilize vast chunks of their summit cones, triggering mega-landslides capable of flattening cities such as Seattle and devastating local infrastructure.
To assess the risk, Daniel Tormey of ENTRIX, an environmental consultancy based in Los Angeles, studied a huge landslide that occurred 11,000 years ago on Planchón-Peteroa.
He focused on this glaciated volcano in Chile because its altitude and latitude make it likely to feel the effects of climate change before others.
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