Starting-elastic-impulsive acceleration mechanism of high-speed rockslide is the foundation of carrying out the research of full course dynamics mechanism of high-speed rockslide. The starting-elastic-impulsive acceleration mechanism of high-speed rockslide is systematically expounded and attributed to two acceleration effects of energy release of sliding zone and energy release of locking block. In order to explore the releasing law of elastic strain energy in rock

cyclic loading and unloading tests of rock are carried out. Meanwhile

the results are applied to calculate the releasable elastic energy for determining elastic-impulsive velocity. Considering the problems in determining the elastic-impulsive velocity in current methods

a new formula for calculating starting-elastic-impulsive velocity is deduced based on the constitutive equation of the sliding zone and the releasing law of elastic strain energy in rock. Jiweishan rockslide is studied using this new method. The results show that starting kinetic energy is mainly provided by the elastic energy of sliding zone rather than the elastic energy of locking block. The total starting-elastic-impulsive velocity of Jiweishan rockslide is 1.261 1 m/s. Finally

the extreme velocity ranges from 2.6 to 4.4 m/s obtained by a generalized sliding model.