The Arizona Department of Water Resources has an excellent program to monitor a somewhat unique geologic hazard – land subsidence. Caused by compaction of valley sediments in areas of declining groundwater table, it can create […]
From the AZGS Document Repository: These guidelines provide professionals evaluating site-specific conditions in areas known or suspected to be subsiding with a standardized minimum level of investigation for land-subsidence and earth-fissure hazards. The guidelines do […]
A new Google Maps based interface for viewing earth fissures in four Arizona counties has been launched by the AZGS. Earth fissures are a serious geologic hazard in Arizona where they have been known to […]
Arizona State Geologist Lee Allison blogged about some recent news coverage of earth fissures as a result of the AZGS’ release of the first of their earth fissure maps. Here is what he said:
The East Valley Tribune published an extensive set of news features on earth fissures in their Sunday edition, including timeline, maps, videos, and an animation of how fissures form.
KPHO, CBS channel 5 in Phoenix, also has a nice video segment with great aerial shots of the 2005 fissure in Chandler Heights that triggered the recent interest in this hazard.
Here is the video he was referring to.
Yesterday the Arizona Geologic Survey (AZGS) released the first two of their 1:12,000 series earth fissure maps to the general public. The mapping program, perhaps the first of its kind in the country, came about after an earth fissures opened up in 2005 near Queen Creek, AZ, southeast of metropolitan Phoenix received much media attention. As a result, the Arizona Legislature passed House Bill 2639 of the 2006 Legislative Session that tasked the AZGS with mapping earth fissures and providing the data to the State Land Department for eventual delivery to property owners in Arizona. More after the break. (At left, the Apache Junction study area map, AZGS)
The Arizona Land Subsidence Group (ALSG) has just released a white paper entitled "Land Subsidence and Earth Fissures in Arizona". More details after the break. (Photo courtesy of NCS Consultants, LLC)
Is it possible to safely rehabilitate dams in earth fissure risk zones to continue to provide economical flood protection to the public, or does the risk of dam failure due to an undetected fissure present too great a threat to the public? Read the article to find out the view of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
According to Lee Allison’s Blog (Lee is the head of the Arizona Geological Survey and the Arizona State Geologist), the AZGS has released earth fissure maps of 4 Arizona Counties suitable for planning purposes. Read on for more details.
Phoenix Arizona’s PBS affiliate, KAET-TV, Channel 8 had a segment on Earth Fissures on their May 30th episode of "Horizons". They interviewed one resident of the Chandler Heights area that has problems with earth fissures on her property. They also interviewed Todd Shippman with the AZGS in the field. Todd is the project manager for the AZGS’ earth fissure mapping program. The bulk of the program was an interview with Lee Allison, the head of the AZGS and the Arizona State Geologist. He explains the earth fissure mapping program, and the planning scale maps that were just released this week on the AZGS Website. Click through for embedded video of the segment from the Horizon Website. You can also download it as a podcast if you wish. (Photo courtesy of NCS Consultants, LLC.)
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