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Geology News
Landslides Current Events

The Frank Landslide happened on April 29th, 1903 in Alberta, Canada. A short description of the event with a few photos can be found at Dave Petley’s blog.

Use the Google Map at right to zoom in on the slide. Click the “View Large Map” link to go full screen.

A small (25′ x 25′) landslide was caused by a ruptured water line on a hillside in La Jolla. The closest homes are a couple hundred feet away but residents realized that landslides can sometimes involve large areas. A video accompanies this short article.

An article on the Ottawa Citizen website explores the mechanics of Leda Clay (quick clay) landslides. The Notre Dame-De-La-Salette landslide is cited as an example. It blocked a river, and flooded a nearby town with water, debris and ice.

Movement on the banks of the River Spey in the north-east of Scotland, has produced a 120-foot high cliff above the river. Officials fear that it will collapse and produce a large wave that might overwhelm anyone in or along the river.

A large landslide last week blocked the only road and electric power to thousands of people in the Papua New Guinea Highlands.

NASA Image

NASA has released images of Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons. These were captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 23, 2008. They show interesting geological features such as landslides and crater chains.

The Philippines office of Mines and Geosciences recommends relocation of many residents on the flank of Mt. Diwalwal after finding large fissures in the ground. Mining activity is being blamed.

Highway 87, known as the “Beeline Highway” was closed for six days near Slate Creek, between Sunflower and Rye, by a large landslide. Safe passage is now possible although work is still being done to reconstruct southbound lanes damaged by the slide.

Pemberton is one of the fastest growing communities in British Columbia. A new study calls for a landslide warning system because the Lillooet River Valley has been hit by three large landslides in the past 6,000 years. Thanks to Ryan Scott for letting us know about this news item.

I really like to see publications like this placed on the web where citizens have free access to valuable information prepared by government agencies. This publication includes chapters on floods, earthquakes, problem soils, mass movements, subsidence and earth fissures, radon, karst, abandon mines, volcanic hazards and radon. Every state should have a publication like this on their website.

Homeowners near Albany are in trouble with a landslide damaging their property. Their hopes that the city will pay to stabilize the slope will probably not pan out because the slide is on private property. And, their hopes that insurance will pay are slim because homeowners insurance normally excludes landslide damage.

USGS Image

Hikers last week in the 2,837-acre Table Mountain Natural Resources Conservation Area came upon a landslide that was about 750 feet wide and about 1/2 mile in length. The slide is on the south flank of Greenleaf Peak about three miles north of North Bonneville. A USGS seismologist is going to look through seismograph records in the area to see if the time of the slide can be determined.

“A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet’s north pole. The image shows tan clouds billowing away from the foot of a towering slope, where ice and dust have just cascaded down.” Quoted from the NASA release.

Herb Dunn shares an amazing photo sequence of a massive rockfall and debris avalanche in Yosemite National Park. Get out of the way!

Heavy rain in Peru has caused flooding and many landslides. Many homes, industrial facilities and crops have been lost.

A cold front dumped heavy rains in the central and southern Philippines. Nearly 300,000 have been displaced and 21 killed by floods and landslides.

The Utah Geological Survey has produced a 1:500,000 scale landslide susceptibility map. Susceptibility was based upon the presence of mapped landslides, geologic units, and landslide slope-angle thresholds in each unit. The map can be downloaded as a .pdf document.

In early December landslides filled the Chehalis River Valley with water and debris. Now environmentalists and scientists say that Weyerhaeuser’s timbering practices were a major contribution to the conditions responsible for the slides.

Two small landslides damage a retaining wall and threaten a home. Don’t miss the photo gallery and video (links are below the photo). That slope was really steep before the slide!

Days of heavy rain triggered flooding and many landslides in the Karanganyar district of Indonesia. You can see photos and a short video at the MSN website.

Bill Burns of the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries has an interesting PowerPoint presentation on the Woodson Debris Flow that recently happened in northwestern Oregon. It has a number of maps and images, plus some personal mitigation advice for those who live where these events might occur.

In November a major landslide in southern Mexico blocked the Grijalva River, the second largest by discharge in the country and buried the town of San Juan de Grijalva. On Tuesday, Mexican authorities opened a canal through the landslide debris.

An article in the Seattle Times links clear-cutting on steep slopes with mudslides in the Stillman Creek area of Lewis County, Washington. The mudslides were associated with the heavy rains that hit Washington early this month.

This is a video of a flood and mudflow that destroyed buildings and forced the closing of US Route 30 near Clatskanie, Oregon. The Oregon Department of Transportation closed the road and evacuated residents shortly before the slide occurred. [CNN Video]   [Oregon Live News Report]

Wildfires in California has left large areas exposed to a significant debris flow hazard. USGS has done an emergency assessment of debris-flow hazards in a number of basins that were burned by the Buckweed, Santiago, Canyon, Poomacha, Ranch, Harris, Witch, Rice, Ammo, Slide, Grass Valley and Cajon Fires.

The Three Gorges Dam was build to generate clean electricity, control flooding and improve shipping on the Yangtze. However it has more than its share of environmental problems. This article explores some of the problems which include: landslides, erosion, tremors and more.

NOAA Image

Flooding, landslides, heavy rain and high winds have given the Washington and Oregon areas a beating. Lots of roads are underwater or blocked by landslides, thousands are without power and many people need rescued from their home.

An engineers report says that home sites damaged by landslides in Rochester, Minnesota were poorly prepared during construction. They were improperly filled, poorly compacted and graded too steeply.

A large mudslide buried parts of San Juan Grijalva village in southern Chiapas, Mexico. About 100 houses were reported buried and 30 people were reported as missing.

An interesting post about the Goleta submarine landslide in the Santa Barbara Basin of offshore California can be seen at clasticdetritus.com. You can read a description of the slide and view two nice bathymetric images. The nugget might be the information on a freeware application that was used to produce the images.

USGS Image

A massive slide of rocks and mud tore a bridge loose from its moorings and buried Frying Pan Road in waist-deep in mud.

Guatemala Map

Heavy rain in Guatemala triggered a landslide on Thursday that slid into a concrete block house. A wall of the house fell inwards killing five children.

Mudslides last week in Alpine Colorado wiped out roads, damaged buildings and forced the evacuation of 98 people. The slides damaged one half of the buildings in the town and are blamed on exceptional amounts of rain during the past month. No injuries were reported.

A landslide in Mexico buried a bus traveling on a remote mountain road. Thirty-two people are confirmed dead.

California Survey

The California Geological Survey has released a few more landslide inventory maps. These are 1:24,000 topographic maps with identified landslides plotted on them. They can be valuable tools for property development and real estate purchase decisions. Morgan Hill, Mt. Sizer, Santa Teresa Hills, Acton, Aqua Dulce, Redondo Beach, San Pedro, Torrance quads are now available. I hope that they are working hard to get more of these published in areas of the state where rapid development coincides with landslide hazard.

USGS Image

Landslides have plagued a portion of La Honda, California for the past ten years. Now about nine acres have been disturbed and dozens of homes have either been damaged or are on the edge of the moving mass. Several homes have been condemned as the city is no longer able to maintain utility service to them. USGS has done a detailed report on the area which is available on the web as a PDF file.

Damage from earthquakes, floods, subsidence, landslides, expansive soils, and other geologic processes are not covered by the typical homeowners insurance policy. Thousands of people across the United States are learning very expensive geology lessons every year. This makes a strong case for geoscience education, easy access to professional opinion, and maybe some changes in the way that insurance is sold.

Maine Map

The Maine Geological Survey is conducting a landslide inventory and asks for citizen input. If you know about a landslide in Maine that has been active since 1987 please report it using an online form on the MGS website - or you can request a paper copy of the form by phone or email. I think that this is a great use of the web to collect geological information and hope that MGS gets some helpful reports.