Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • WHERE I WORK

The gravity of rockfalls

Andrin Caviezel runs alpine experiments to predict the destructive potential of tumbling rocks
By
  1. Chris Woolston

    1. Chris Woolston is a freelance writer in Billings, Montana.

Andrin Caviezel checks a 3.200kg ferroconcret block in Schiers.

Andrin Caviezel is a rockfall scientist at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Davos, Switzerland. Credit: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters/Alamy

I drop rocks down mountainsides — for science. Rockslides are a major hazard here in Switzerland. They can damage roads, railways, buildings and tunnels, and the risk only grows as climate change shrinks glaciers and exposes more loose rock. Geologists can predict when and whether a particular rock is likely to fall, but that’s only part of the story.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 607, 838 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02044-9

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links