Lavereudslips

Lavereudslips is a term used in geology to describe rapid, shallow landslide events that occur within layered lava flows. The concept refers to sudden downslope movement along weak slip surfaces that develop between distinct lava units as a flow cools and contracts, often leaving localized scarps and hummocky topography.

Coined in the 2020s in discussions of speculative volcanology, the name combines elements of lava and slip, with an appended suffix to mark a discrete slip event.

Mechanism: In cooling, vesicular lava, alternating units create interfaces with differing strength and density. Gas exsolution and crystallization can reduce shear strength on these interfaces, enabling a portion of a lower unit to slide over an upper surface during a trigger such as seismic shaking, magma intrusion, or rapid unloading. Movements are typically shallow, affecting the upper meters to tens of meters of the flow, and may recur along separate planes.

Surface expressions include scarps, overturned blocks, and irregular topography that can form within minutes to hours after the slip. The event can alter eruption-fed channels and influence subsequent solidification of the flow, creating a modified layering pattern.

In real-world geology, lavereudslips remain a theoretical construct or a term used mainly in speculative or fictional contexts. Similar processes are discussed under internal shear, block slumping, or rock avalanching within lava flows, but lavereudslips as a labeled mechanism are not widely adopted in mainstream volcanology.