In March 2018, I took part in a cone penetration testing (CPT) and core campaign in Lake Lucerne, Switzerland. Since one of the aims of my PhD is to focus on the geotechnical characterization of lake basins, at the toe of landslide deposits, using Lake Lucerne as natural laboratory, this campaign has been a great opportunity to approach the CPT method and to acquire useful data on which I will work in the next years.

The main aim of our acquisition was to obtain CPT and core data in Lake Lucerne basin, in order to study and understand the role of frontal buttress in both initiation of sliding and frontal emplacement style. We selected four different study sites: three landslides and one area of possible future instability. In all sites, we acquired transects of CPT measurements (using a FreeFall-CPT lance with 5m and 6m long configuration) and cores. All cores were acquired using the free fall method.

Further steps ahead are core analysis in Innsbruck and one-week CPT processing and interpretation kick-off meeting in Bremen. Furthermore, we are planning another acquisition in Lake Lucerne at the beginning of September, right before the SLATE annual meeting. We aim to acquire other CPT, core and seismic data in the areas of interest.