North Carolina Landslide Hazards
Geologic Hazards
Recent Rockfall Stories in New Zealand, Colorado and Portugal
There were three fairly recent rockfall events with fatalities that made the news and caught my eye. State Highway 36 in New Zealand is still closed after a major rockfall occurred in Rotura. The photo […]
Geologic Hazards
Chongquing Landslide in China Kills at least 79, Traps 27 Miners
A 12 million cubic meter landslide occurred in Wulong county in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality on Friday. There are some excellent blog posts on this rockslide at Dave’s Landslide Blog. This massive failure occurred in […]
Project Related
Geotechnical Engineering Challenges of British Columbia’s Sea-to-Sky Highway, gateway to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been enjoying watching the 2010 Olympic Winter games over the past few days. If you have, you know that Whistler is the venue for many of the sports including alpine skiing, luge, skeleton, bobsled, ski jumping, biathlon and cross-country skiing among others. The Whistler area is located about 50-miles or so North of Vancouver. In order to get to Whistler, you need to drive along Highway 99, better known as the Sea-to-Sky Highway. This highway has a long history of geotechnical problems, including some significant structurally controlled rockslides and landslides. In the years leading up to these Olympic Games a fair amount of work was done on the highway with some significant geotechnical innovations.