Imagine the scene 4,800 years ago when a rock avalanche nearly 2 km long buried much of the Zion Valley in a matter of 90 seconds, creating a dam on the Virgin River that flooded essentially the entire floor of the canyon that millions of visitors enjoy every year. The researchers that analyzed this event are in the Geohazards group of the University of Utah led by Dr. Jeff Moore. Dr. Moore happens to be an old classmate of mine from the geological engineering program at the University of Arizona. I didn’t dig up the publication where this Zion Canyon research was written before it went viral, but there are some great figures posted on his website and I’m sure you can click around and find the citation if you are interested. [Source: YouTube via Geoengineer.org. Image: YouTube]
Related Articles
Scariest Rockfall Video Ever? Batseri Rockslide
Nile Landslide Destroys Large Stretch of Washington SR 410
A massive landslide has destroyed at least a quarter-mile of State Route 410 in Washington State, about 10 miles from Naches in Yakima County. It has also damaged about 12 structures including residential homes and quarry buildings and diverted the Naches River. The media has been referring to it as the Naches Slide, but the personnel from the Washington Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geology and Earth Resources who have began investigating the slide as well as WSDOT are calling it the Nile Landslide. (Photo by WAStateDNR-DoGaER)
Click through for photos and videos. For more info on the slide, check out the Sliding Thought Blog, an unofficial blog by Isabelle Sarikhan of the WAStateDNR – Division of Geology and Earth Resources “aka” the Washington Geologic Survey. She’s been actively investigating the slide along with some colleagues.
North Carolina Landslide Hazards
Geology.com pointed out a very nice PDF version of a Power Point presentation by the North Carolina Geologic Survey on their landslide hazard mapping efforts in western North Carolina. The presentation was dated August 1 of last year. The NCGS also has their landslide mapping products available for download, and those so inclined can download the GIS data sets as well. (Photo by NCGS)