Sea to Sky Highway Landslide

The people living on the eastern bank of the Traunsee (map on following page) in Austria are able to observe geology in motion these days. About one million tons of soil and rock are moving in a slow landslide toward the lake, throwing over trees (picture at left) and threatening to take parts of a village with them. More… 

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The Devil’s Slide Tunnel project is on schedule and on budget according to a news story at ABC7News.com from earlier in June. The video (shown after the break) has a few nice shots showing rock bolting, soil nailing at the portals, and the geologic mapping and laser scanning that happens at the tunnel face.

I also came across a very neat article about how the Ocean Shore Railroad Company was the first to try to cut into the slope along what is now PCH 1 at the Devil’s Slide back in the early 1900s. They were trying to connect the then rural farming community of Half-Moon Bay with San Francisco. The railroad fought the reoccurring landslide and serious rockfalls. Ocean Shore Railroad went bankrupt in 1922 and pulled up its rails, making room for the current highway. (Photo at left from halfmoonbaymemories.com)

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The National Geodetic Data Center (NGDC) of NOAA has an online collection of photos of various geologic hazards. Many of the photos are from older sets of 35mm slides that have been digitized. They are free to use provided you credit the photographer and the NGDC as the source. The would be really useful for educators and for powerpoint presentations. The only drawback is that they are in TIF format and some of them could use some retouching. (Photo by University of Colorado, made available by NOAA/NGDC)

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