VOLCANO MADNESS: [Geology2] Part 2: Collapse of the San Pedro landslide

Monday, November 21, 2011

[Geology2] Part 2: Collapse of the San Pedro landslide

21 November 2011

Collapse of the San Pedro landslide

Posted by dr-dave

As expected, the San Pedro landslide in California that I highlighted last week has now failed, with a substantial movement event that has caused complete destruction of the road. The final collapse, which happened on Sunday afternoon, appears to have been associated with a rainstorm, but as this is a progressive failure it is not really valid to define this as a trigger. BBC News has a nice video of the site, whilst the Daily Breeze has a gallery of images, including this one:

http://lang.dailybreeze.com/photos/photos.asp?a=1365655#id=1365655&num=2

The video suggests that there is still a substantial volume material in a quite precarious state on the slope, such that further large movements at the front (cliff side) of the slide are likely. For this reason it is important that the exclusion zone around the landslide, especially on the beach, is maintained.

Rebuilding the road on the existing alignment is likely to be very expensive at best.

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