Landslides with Back-Calculated Strength Parameters, Cosmogenic 10-Be Samples, and Stream Profile Inversion Data, Utuado, Puerto Rico (USA)

This Data Release comprises a lidar-mapped landslide inventory along the Quebrada de Utuado watershed, a tributary to the Rio Viví in the Utuado Municipality of Puerto Rico. The study area watershed is underlain primarily by quartz diorite of the Utuado batholith (Bawiec, 1998) and is part of an area that experienced some of the highest landslide concentrations from 2017 Hurricane Maria (Bessette-Kirton et al., 2019). The landslides included in this inventory are mapped from 2016 lidar data that predate Hurricane Maria for the purposes of comparing pre-storm and post-storm landslides in the region (e.g., Einbund et al., 2021). Additionally, the study region traverses a strong weathering gradient due to differential incision into a topographic plateau. In the associated manuscript for this data release, Perkins et al. (2026), we use a 3-D back-analysis algorithm to calculate landslide subsurface geometries and bulk friction angle and cohesion (Alberti et al., 2022). We include these parameters within the landslide deposit shapefile, and key a paired index value to the corresponding landslide escarpment (Utuado_landslide_and_studyarea_polygons.zip). The Data Release also includes a set of Python functions and an example jupyter notebook to illustrate the stream profile inversion and weathering mass balance methods used in our accompanying manuscript (Channel_inversion_USGS_DR_pub.zip), as well as a table of our cosmogenic 10Be measurements used to calculate basin-averaged erosion rates (SupportingTables_10Be_for_Perkins_etal_USGS_DR.zip, which contains individual .csv files of the raw and processed data as well as a duplicate .xlsx file including both). Lastly, we include the boundaries of the study area basin as a separate polygon shapefile (Utuado_landslide_and_studyarea_polygons.zip). 

Abstract References: 
 
Alberti, S., Leshchinsky, B., Roering, J., Perkins, J., & Olsen, M. J., 2022, Inversions of landslide strength as a proxy for subsurface weathering: Nature Communications, 13(1), 6049. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33798-5.
 

Bawiec, W. J., 1999, Geology, geochemistry, geophysics, mineral occurrences and mineral resource assessment for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report, No. 98–38. https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr9838.
 
Bessette-Kirton, E. K., Cerovski-Darriau, C., Schulz, W. H., Coe, J. A., Kean, J. W., Godt, J. W., et al., 2019, Landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria: Assessment of an extreme event in Puerto Rico: GSA Today, 29(6), 4–10. https://doi.org/10.1130/GSATG383A.1.


Einbund, M. M., Baxstrom, K. W., & Schulz, W. H., 2021, Map data from landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria in four study areas in the Utuado Municipality, Puerto Rico: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9ZNUR1P.

Perkins, J. P., Huang, M.-H., Cerovski-Darriau, C., Schulz, W. H., Cronkite-Ratcliffe, C., Baxstrom, K., Einbund, M., Willenbring, J.K., Leshchinsky, B., & Johnstone, S.A., 2026, Impacts of Transient Critical Zone Evolution on Landslide Susceptibility and Hazard across the Utuado Batholith, Puerto Rico: Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 131, e2025JF008847, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JF008847.