Slab Triggering

Bibliography

Slabs are triggered when the less dense snow collapses under the weight of the denser slab that formed on top of it. Then the less dense layer fails this makes the frictional forces between the base layers and the slab layers very minimal and allows the entire slab to start moving as one massive unit. This enormous mass of snow then starts to pile up at the lowest potential energy spot and buries anything that is there with it. These generally have more mass than cornices and they can be both triggered by people from above them near the fracture point or at the bottom of valleys where you would least expect it to be triggered from. In the picture below you can clearly see the fracture line and where the slab did its damage.

http://www.math.utah.edu/~eyre/lectures/snow/slab.html