There are often very large areas at some risk and it may not be practical to avoid them. The key is to find the home or lot with the least amount of potential hazard.
Thank you very much. I’ve learned something new today. Your style of teaching appeals very much to me, so much that I’m eager to keep on learning and listening. Keeping focused is never an issue on your channel, said the 47 yr electronic engineer (bsc) 😂 #keeponlearning
Imagine if we had lifespans of one or two billion years! We would see the surface of the Earth is being fluidic. Stability would probably not be a word in our lexicon.
County and municipalities should hire geologists to assess the stability of slopes in areas where homes are to be built before approving a development permit.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. The topic is interesting to me but the instruction is the reason I stayed for the entire video. Not everybody can be an instructor.
Yes, this was very clearly explained, and easy to absorb. Lots of information and knowledge here I've never given much thought too before seeing this video.
THANK YOU! Using drone footage and Google earth images to give a context to what a person walking on the ground is *very* useful. It was a very neat way to get a visual idea of history. This goes to show that those who don’t study history are prone to repeating past events.
I never would've thought I'd be so interested in watching geology videos but there's just something so magnetic about an expert talking passionately about the field they love. It really draws you in. Thank you, Myron.
This is one of the subjects presented in school that should be absolutely fascinating, and the presenter manages to beat that last vestiges of interesrt out of the subject matter.
Absolutely have the same reaction here. I look at stones and rocks and feel they are able to tell a story if I could understand the language. Myron helps me learn it.
As an Architect/builder who specialized in Steep, so called un-buildable sites, I often had to inform a potential client that it would be inadvisable to build on their site and I declined building the project. Often they would find another builder. The Portland West Hills are prone to slide. Most are mud and debris flows that can cause significant damage but are not, so far, catastrophic. In the Columbia River Gorge, catastrophic, deadly slides have occurred and evidence of ancient slides abound, some are still moving. Several of the Portland sites I declined to build on have suffered from slides over the past 50-years, while none of the sites I built on have had issues. I also approach building on steep slopes differently than most other builders as I drove an array of steel pilings into bedrock rather than the typical post tied onto a poured concrete plinth/pad or shallow concrete piling. If no bedrock was available at a reasonable depth as indicated by a core sample. I didn't build. If overburden existed above the site, I didn't build. If other slide indicators, as described in your very informative video were present, I didn't build. I often see housing developments built right under potential slide areas and I just have to shake my head and question the lack of critical thinking so apparently missing. Profit before lives?
Also likely because of red tape. Zoning codes often don't allow for anything other than single family homes to be built, which if you ask me, is a giant misuse of land, especially when it comes to flooding, landslides, or forest fires. Turns out you don't need to build in shady areas if the existing areas allowed for anything denser than a ranch house
@@Demopans5990 Even then, the US has so much land. But that may actually be the problem, for so long you could just easily expand and realize the single family homes, that it's now culturally so entrenched, it's hard to abandon, even if the drawbacks have become rather obvious. But yeah, i do think it's geology that to a degree saved Switzerland from sprawling out of control. The very limited amount of save to built on land, has driven land value up to a degree, where single family homes are not really a sound investment.
Hi Myron! My house was built on a hill in 1950 (fairly lax building codes at that time) so I have long been concerned about seismic liquifaction of the earth mound under my foundation. One thing I have going in my favor is a colony of Locust trees with theie spreading roots. I have encouraged the Locust tree roots to form a basket around my dirt mound and I hope that will help hold it all together in the (admitedly unlikely) event of a seismic episode strong enough to cause concern (since I live outside of Baltimore, not known to be particularly siesmically active). I appreciate this video because I take this very seriously. I must say, you did some great demonstrations to aid in visualizing the hydraulic pressures involved in driving landslides. Wow, the scale of those very large landslide complexes makes me feel very tiny in comparison.
I was looking at a model townhome in Sedona Az. Up against a magnificent, red, shear cliff. Walked out onto the back patio and looked up. I saw a boulder about the size of a 2 car garage nearly straight up. "Who in the world,..." I thought as I quickly left the death trap.
The Turtle Mountain landslide in southwestern Alberta is particularly impressive. A jumble of house size boulders extending kilometers from the mountainside that collapsed, extending through the town. They found an infant crying atop one of the boulders; amazing that anyone in the path survived.
In the "they shouldda knowed" department: this landslide was not natural; it was caused by badly engineered coal mines in the mountain. So easy to dig straight into the mountain at the base!
i presume this would be visible on Google Earth. i will take a look at it after the video is finished. i never heard of this incident and hope that everyone that could be saved, was.
Search Google Earth for Turtle Mountain, the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre appear on the edge of the slide. The boundary of the slide shows how massive it was.
The infant story is an urban legend. Think about massive boulders from an entire half of a crumbling mountain and any set of circumstances where a baby gets tossed from a house and lands safely on top of one.
Sadly the La Conchita slide law suits awarded the victims with tons of money and financially ruined the guy with the avocado farm at the top of the cliff even though expert witnesses said his irrigation had nothing to do with the land slide. It had rained 40 inches that year, nearly three times the yearly average but they had the nerve to blame the farmer. The county also got off scott free even though they allowed people to build homes in a well known hazard site and did not inform those owners of the risks. So the one guy who had absolutely nothing to do with the idiocy of living in La Conchita paid with his entire livelihood and property was taken from him. It was one of the greatest miscarriages of justice I've ever seen.
I live near Oso, I remember vividly driving through the slide the day they cleared the road. The scary thing that few talk about is what's heavily suspected to have influenced the slide is how the hillside was logged back in the old days. Because of how they logged and terraformed the hill it created an unnatural funnel for rainwater down the slope, eroding and weakening the soil and causing it to be deeply unstable. And worse than that, their methods were apparently no uncommon throughout the whole PNW - which means there's certainly more to come in the future.
I just thought I would paste a comment in this same video: "I remember driving through the landslide in Oso, WA right after it happened (after the hwy was reopened of course) it was devastating . I spoke with a couple Sauk-Suiattle natives and they said their grandmothers called it "The Walking Valley" and knew not to build in that specific area."
25 Years ago I was a gullible east coast resident looking for a place to retire in the mountains of western Colorado for retirement purposes. I had picked out a location and was back in the east coast browsing over topo maps while waiting for the paperwork to finish. It appeared that there was a couple of square miles of mountain missing above the house I was looking at combined with a large area below the tentative home that appeared to have extra mountain material. Nearby real estate advertisements talked about a "seasonal pond" part-way up the mountain. I placed a quick telephone call to the real estate agent agent asking if there were any old geological reports about the area. I was "reassured" by the agent that it wasn't steep enough for a landslide, but he would look into it. Two days later I received a phone call from the agent , and his first words were "you were right". - it was a marked "landslide/slope failuredisappeared
I just love the time every few weeks we get to spend online watching your videos and learning. This was one of the few that wasn't hard for me, since here on Hawai'i Island it's very easy to see the scarping and slumps from old landslides. So when you were showing the views from your drone i was easily picking out the features of the slides.
Very nicely done. I'm recalling landslides both historically and recently in southcentral Alaska. Of course the Lituya Bay event was enormous, but there were so few people there it was not som harmful. The 1964 quake, magnitude 9.2 coerced many potential locations to slide, both above ground and below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. In November of 2022, a landslide in Haines killed a couple of folks as their homes were washed into the sea. Thanks for the great perspectives!
What a helpful video you have made and shared with us. We can now see the bigger picture and know where unscrupulous developers are pushing their luck with new housing.
I’ve long wondered how developers get away with building houses and developments in ecologically dicey areas. They should be required to get a geological threat assessment that’s made available to the public before getting a license to build and should be held responsible if they chose to build in a bad area and people die. People do such selfish and reckless things putting others at risk in the pursuit of profit.
So there's a slump. The exposed head scarp is no longer buttressed and the area behind it becomes prone to slumping. That continues back up the underlying features until it plays out. Since most inclines are nonlinear, in many cases slides could get bigger until it does play out? Are the underlying features that lead to slides damaged enough during slides/slumps to make the debris field stable? Great info as always. My father was a HS science teacher who acquired a geology degree over time. He would have loved your videos.
Thanks for sharing such fascinating geology! I've taken a particular interest in landslides and have been mapping out landslide events that make headline news or posted via social media. By mapping out these events, its hard not to see that, more times than not, landslides happen along certain geological formations, which I still need to gather more notes to say for sure. I never tire keeping record and studying the geology of landslide regions ... there's always something new to learn. Your presentation gave me a greater understanding of the dynamic process of landslides! Another ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ geology lesson!
With the attention span of a gnat, I watch your videos from beginning to end. Listening to every word, picturing every drawing and explanation. The Morgan Freeman of geologist! I got hooked after coming across the scablands story.
thank you for this. i live in an Appalachian holler in eastern KY, and hoping to buy my own property nearby soon. landslides are probably the thing that keeps me up at night, living in such a geologically crazy place, lol. i've looked at geologic maps from my local university, but they only notated potential debris flows on the taller peaks in my county, nothing about the one i live on. so i've felt the need to do a deeper dive, and there's definitely a lot of these features all over the place where i'm at. seeps, springs, and debris flows among the ridges and valleys. the road i live near to is called Spout Springs rd., and as the name suggests, it had a very nice spring nearby that served this community for decades. if i knew how much a geologist charges for their services, i would probably feel better employing an expert, if i could afford it.
Myron, you keep knocking them out of the park! This was another fantastic video and I deeply appreciate you doing these. Once you learn how to spot things like scarps, moraines, clusters of lakes, and fossilized sand dunes you can never unsee them. You start to see and appreciate the history embedded in the landscape that has been staring you right in the face the whole time. It is magical and deepens a person's appreciation of time and space.
Just a fantastic video, Myron! Not only fascinating from a geology perspective, but also, almost any one, after having watched this video should be able to see the telltale clues of a landslide prone terrain.
I really Like Your style. Always so informative without sounding like you're talking down. It's like we're going on the learning adventure. This video in particular really got me thinking.
Thank you my friend, I will never see the landscape the same again. I found two easily recognizable slumps on the west side Green Mountain, west of Denver. You would see them at a glance, they are only 5-7 decades old. Great lesson Myron!
Your an amazing geologist and professor. Thank you for bringing this information to the world in a profound explanation tion. Your drone footage is outstanding, and very high quality. I don't think you would be able to produce a higher quality educational video. Nice work! Looking forward to the next one Myron.
As a delegate from the Miami Florida Airport Landslide Authority, I must say I enjoyed your presentation very much. We need your your help with a problem that our resident astrologer predicted could occur as a result of landslides in our area. (planetary alignments and that sort of thing) We have plenty of government money to fund your project. Sincerely, Harvey Gruntsplatter MFALA
Thanks for another well done lesson in geology. I was living in Santa Barbara near La Cochita during the time of both slides. They were both heavy rain years. 1995 had two 500-year rain events, 10 Jan & 10 March. The 2005 rain came down more or less steadily over a week or 10 days. The soils were just clay muddy, very slide prone. Many slumps are visible along that stretch of Hwy 101. After the 1st slide a retaining wall of big steel I-Beam piles with timbers secured by the I-beam channels had been put in place along the warning signs about the slide dangers. People stayed anyway and even moved ther due to cheap property values. Leading up to the 2005 slide water pressure at the base of the slide was causing water to spray out between timbers. Many people left, but several stayed with the deadly consequences. Ironically, an avocado rancher at the top of the plateau was sued, accused of “overwatering”. The rancher lost - crazy Cali!🤦🏻
If they had two 500-year rain events in the same year, that tells us they don't actually know what the 500-year rain event is, and their current estimates are way off.
Avocados are a thirsty crop, but I dont put it past Americans to put overly litigous. They need 70 liters for a single avocado, there other water intensive crops that we love like almonds and oranges but damn that shit is insane. Maybe the farm shouldnt have been so upstream so to speak.
It was winter, nobody irrigates their orchards at that time of year. Compared to the amount of rain received, it would be nearly impossible to irrigate an equivalent amount of water, let alone pay for it.
@@scottyallen7237 Good context, I meant to comeback and add to my previous comment that also maybe folks shouldnt have set up downslope of a historically dangerous area.
There was a lot of debate if Ventura County should forcibly evict people from living there in La Conchita. There may have been warnings posted. People who lived there were aware of the risk, but may have rationalized false comfort from the temporary barrier installed in an attempt to stabilize the slope. People are still living there today.
I remember dad telling me about the Hebgen Lake slide. As a kid he and his whole family used to fish and camp there. I have also heard that the north face of Mt Helena is an ancient landslide area. Your videos have encouraged me to make some road trips around the Wyoming/Montana/Dakotas area.
These landslides with their bulging hills & lake formation, might be the answer for the Green, un-conformity boundary layer that is found in New Mexico, & elsewhere right? Thanks Myron, our Geology Guru!
Its always a great day when Myron Cook gives us another fantastic video! I had to go to the bank today and they had a print on the wall and it was fun to try and work a geologists eye on it. I counted 20+ layers in a portion of it, I just wish I knew where the photo was taken so I could learn more about. When you talked about landslide scars I hope Im not too presumptious in my own understanding to say that you were cleverly standing right on top of some! I absolutely love the way you structure these lectures, I know Id be just as engaged in a classroom setting with such perfectly curated visual aides. Now I know why they always called them escarpments on Time Team, cause it was typically the result of erosion and/or landslides that made the steep surfaces theyd be rappeling and carefully digging in. As you got to the pip demonstration I was reminded of glimpses of some hard bedrock exposed in a couple of your shots and it immediately stood at as a red flag. Relatively thin soil with an immberable is a recipe for disaster OOH MY GOD THE MASSIVE SCARPE AT 37:05. It boggles the mind to imagine what seeing that wouldve been like. And then seeing the chain of stones indicating shoulders thatve been really weathered in the next one, mega yikes.
The view at the 3:15 mark is quite striking. I see evidence on the right side of the stream of an older bajada, or linked series of alluvial fans, a depositional feature, that is now being actively eroded by the stream. In addition to down-cutting it appears that there is a significant landslide hazard on the “hummock-y” slope between the fans and the stream bank, and that the margin of the old alluvial fan is actually a scarp created by extensive areas of the old fan slumping into the drainage. Edit: Ooof. Myron zooms in with the drone on exactly that scene at the 27:00 minute mark. At the 33:00 minute mark at the Oso, WA slide, one of the common features of all 4 slides seems to be that they occurred at the OUTSIDES of meander bends where erosion is progressing the fastest and “over-steepening” the slopes above the outsides of the meander bends faster than other parts of the drainage. The Oso debris flow pushed the stream across the valley and now the OPPOSITE side of the river will be the outside of the meander bend, making that the more likely location for a future slide.
Living in Wisconsin, I don't usually hear much about landslides, but this video sure makes me think. It seems the only thing that separates a lot of these areas from sliding is time.
Thank you Myron Cook - this is the second time I have watched this very informative video. Your "teaching style" makes is pretty easy for anyone to learn and recognize landslide areas. There were a number of landslide or slumping residential areas in San Diego that got quite a lot of publicity a number of years back.
I am in no way a geologist, and I watch these videos out of curiosity. Who would have thought that I'll get something that practical and useful! Thank you so much!
So glad you mentioned Grand Mesa. Had the opportunity to do some soil and lake sediment coring there while working on my undergrad and those slump and rotational blocks created the ideal conditions to get data that can help us reconstruct passed climatic conductions (up until the last glacial maximum). Such a beautiful place and great video!
Ever since I watched this video a few months ago, I've been educated enough to spot mudslide areas or ancient ones all over the world when flying in my flight simulator and real life. It's absolutely intriguing to spot these areas from the air to see the true scale of some of them. In New Zealand, especially, I've noticed a few of the largest ones yet. Truly good content! Thanks Myron.
FYI. The July 12 landslide landslide atop the Palos Verdes Peninsula may have been caused by a broken water pipes under one of the homes that was lost to the slide. Prior to the slide, the neighbor got a water bill over $1000. It must have been broken for several months.
Thank you for the pointers. I have (possibly had) an interest in acquiring land with a large hillside and bottom area to build on. I most likely will not ever pursue this vision (more bark than bite) even before watching this video, but if I do, I'll have something more to consider.
Thanks. Myron I appreciate your video today as that it brought back memories of what my Geology 101 professor said about the Warm Spring Mass on a field trip in about 1995-6. He told us that it was actually slow moving landslide. The developers were building like crazy in the area. I believe it only speeded up the process of the landslide.
I remember driving through the landslide in Oso, WA right after it happened (after the hwy was reopened of course) it was devastating . I spoke with a couple Sauk-Suiattle natives and they said their grandmothers called it "The Walking Valley" and knew not to build in that specific area.
This is a great piece. I've been a geologist for several decades now. This is a well put together presentation. It has a good tone and pace for education. It could be the standard for all folks that evaluate and approve building plans and civil works. Nature always wins so it's best we not get in the way. Great presentation.
Thanks so much, you are an incredibly talented teacher. You have given some visually stunning examples and cleverly overlaid the processes involved. I'll never look at a piece of country side again without looking for slumps and bites !! Take care from Australia.
WOW! I knew some of this. Now I know so much more. My dad in the mid 1960s vetoed several locations of land mom wanted for a weekend cabin site. He said no because of snow avalanche and/or landslide danger. He was an old school woodsman. We would drive through Oso long before people lived there. Dad was always nervous because he said it had an old history of slides. Then in college I was thinking of a geography major when a large slump type slide occurred along the Yakima River in Kittitas County WA. The professor spent a lecture about that slide, what slump slides are, and how they are very common in Eastern Washington. Now that I've been watching you and a couple of other geologists I see details in land better than three years ago. I had begun to recognize alluvial fans better. Yet this video has really furthered my vision greatly. At the beginning I missed some of the danger until you pointed them out. This video needs to be required training for city planner and developers when getting their licenses, especially in the western US. Thank you.
Once again I find that 38 minutes and 47 seconds doesn't reach the end of my attention span when the subject matter and teacher are so well synched with each other. Thank you, Myron.
I lived on the coast in California near hwy 101. A section of that hwy lay between the ocean and a hill that was at high risk for landslides and where some had already occurred. There were homes there. After a particularly heavy amount of rain a landslide warning was issued. Some of the occupants were slow to leave. A man and his daughter went for ice cream for the other two daughters and mother at home. While they were gone the land slid burying the homes. No one survived. So sad.
When I took botany and went on my first field trip, the professor taught us just not to just look but to see the life at our feet as we hiked. It opened a whole new world for me. Now I am learning to see the actual ground I’m walking on in a whole new way. Thanks! I figure it’s better late than never…
Now do Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs. They want to build a bunch of houses in an obvious ancient slump right above Ft. Carson. I feel like I'm the only one who sees the risk.
If you're building a structure on any of these locations . . . probably just pitch a tent. Thanks Myron for another awesome video. I learned a lot. The way springs pop out of hillsides was a big one for me. Cheers
24:20 these graphics really helped me better visualize/understand what you were demonstrating. i thank you very much for this. for me, it did wonders to clarify your message.
Awesome! I am reminded of attending Sul Ross state in 79-80 and admiring the beautiful surroundings. Columnar joints to the west, lizard mountain and the beautiful nighttime Texas sky.
I looked into buying one of the homes in Oso Washington. Very nice, could almost fish out of the front door. I used Google and noticed the scalloped cutouts up and down the river, also patterns that indicated that the peninsula had been regularly flooded historically, so we passed. This was the green home that was hit first by the landslide. The day after the slide (less than a year after looking at the home) I realized that could have been me. I got very cold. (In school I had taken several geology classes. I am thankful for that)
It's so obvious once you know what to look for, but none of this would ever have occurred to me if I hadn't seen this video. I don't know why TH-cam recommended this video to me, but it expanded my knowledge. Thanks.
This brought back many childhood memories. I was born and raised on the East Coast of the North Island of NZ. Once the forest cover was removed to create stock farms the soft mud stone under the small layer of topsoil became very susceptible to extreme slipping. I have seen an area where water pressure blew a block of land, the size of a couple of acres off the hill side. The slide seemed to jump of the hill then slide to the bottom. by thge end of the rain event over 80% of the hill side grass was gone, either in the slide or was ripped out as the slide wnt down the hill. Gotta love mudstone dissolving when wet!!!
Sir, your expertise is very valuable and if the Chinese government followed your advice…the people might have more normal conditions to live in. I really enjoy watching your videos. Thank you for sharing your videos with us! ❤
The more I watch and learn, the more I realize I chose the wrong profession. I should have studied to be a geologist. When I was in my early teens, If I had been exposed to geology, being taught in a straightforward, simple to understand way as is here. I would have gone in a different direction. That would have changed the course of my life. Sure wish TH-cam was available back in the 70.
Land For Sale? Great view of the ocean. Light rolling hills between mountains. No need to consult any experts here. It will be fine. Thirty years later after many heavy rains, earthquakes, floods, etc. and all of a sudden it is not. Great eye opening video professor. Glad I live in the Midwest or I would be calling you!
Excellent video for the average reader. It correlates with my field experiences in the Oregon and SE Alaska coastal forests. We stabilized a land slide in 1985 on the Oregon coast with horizontal drains. It finally slid in 1997 after a hard winter storm. People rebuilt houses at the toe of the debris flow. Good video.
That was excellent! I live in the Limousin area of France, just outside an old village, in a house that began to be built about 150 years ago, on a pile of rocks, but without the kind of foundation that would be normal today. I‘m satisfied that it will be here for another 150 years, but the house is surrounded by underground streams. Your video has helped me to understand more about the geology underneath my feet. Thank you so much for your very clear, and very timely, explanation!
Wow, wow -- brilliant video, important video. This could save enormous money and more importantly many lives. Where I live in the SLC area of Utah large numbers of people live on the slopes of the mountains in areas called ... benches. Late spring of this year, thanks to the heavy rains and snowfall we received over the winter, there were a number of homes destroyed through a combination of flash flooding and minor landslides. Thankfully no one was killed, but a number of very expensive homes were destroyed or made uninhabitable. I've learned a lot about geology and the world around me thinks to guys like you and Shawn Willsey. The use of modern tools like Google Earth and drones provide a perspective that must be changing geology as we speak...
Soil mechanics was the hardest course for me for my civil engineering degree, this really really helps visualize things like pore pressure and stuff like that
I just happened to watch this video a week ago. Then I witnessed the very thing Mr.Cook was discussing. The tropical storm Hilary hit California this past week and multiple landslides occurred. A sad thing for the people who live there. If only they had this knowledge before looking for a home to buy. Thank you for all your efforts and sharing your knowledge with us.
Excellent video. I like how you tie in geology with common situations, like buying property and building homes, that ordinary people want to do. Your presentation of geology to the average person is excellent. You don't insult us, you inform us.
Have you seen what has happened just north of LA this year after all the heavy rains ? You have really made this process more understandable. Thank you.
Thank you Byron for providing knowledge that will be a great advantage looking for property to build or buy a home. In the 1980's while in the LA area attending a geology symposium we took a field trip to a new subdivision being developed located on a hillside over the San Andreas Fault with obvious slump blocks. The joke was they were building soon to be split level homes! Although it was no joke. Obvious the danger of of slumping hill sides was being overlooked. If I recall correctly the development was "red tagged" and halted due to the potential danger.
Awesome video! I love the work using the drones and Google maps. It really puts into perspective the grand size of landslides. It turns out to be an unfortunate disaster. This dives into the issue of politics, and also peoples desires and fantasies of buying a nice looking home, without realizing the dangers of the environment around them. This is really useful information. Thank you so much for sharing in such an interesting matter.
I worked at that landslide for 3 days. I helped coordinate building the road, connecting Darlington to the outside world. That slide almost took out the bases of the powerline towers.
Great video. I'm reminded of Dr. Trexler and Dr. Washburn (of Juniata College), driving the GEO 101 and 102 students around central PA in the early 80's showing us places where landslides and sinkholes were likely to happen. One particular highway cutting wasn't just in slate but with the layers dipping towards the road. They had a lot to say about that decision.
This is fascinating in light of the recent mud/landslides that resulted from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. We are certainly looking at our property much differently now!
Great video. 27:16 looks like a hoof print, great example there. If you imagine waterlogging as a weight pushing down on an area you start to see how it would fail. Anything that isn’t bedrock can potentially collapse like a sandcastle.
There are often very large areas at some risk and it may not be practical to avoid them. The key is to find the home or lot with the least amount of potential hazard.
Thank you very much. I’ve learned something new today. Your style of teaching appeals very much to me, so much that I’m eager to keep on learning and listening. Keeping focused is never an issue on your channel, said the 47 yr electronic engineer (bsc) 😂 #keeponlearning
What do you think caused the Turkey Olive Grove collapse? Do you think that whole area is likely to collapse?
As I understand, it was caused by a large mining operation. Hopefully, it is done with collapsing.
Imagine if we had lifespans of one or two billion years! We would see the surface of the Earth is being fluidic. Stability would probably not be a word in our lexicon.
County and municipalities should hire geologists to assess the stability of slopes in areas where homes are to be built before approving a development permit.
This isn't just a video on geology. This is a master course in how to be an excellent teacher.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. The topic is interesting to me but the instruction is the reason I stayed for the entire video. Not everybody can be an instructor.
Yes, this was very clearly explained, and easy to absorb. Lots of information and knowledge here I've never given much thought too before seeing this video.
I was thinking it was both.
THANK YOU!
Using drone footage and Google earth images to give a context to what a person walking on the ground is *very* useful. It was a very neat way to get a visual idea of history. This goes to show that those who don’t study history are prone to repeating past events.
Thank you Myron 🎉for your concisse explanation of what to look for!
I never would've thought I'd be so interested in watching geology videos but there's just something so magnetic about an expert talking passionately about the field they love. It really draws you in. Thank you, Myron.
it's like you're sitting down and chatting with an old friend. at least, for me, it is.
There are plenty of experts, but none of them are Myron, and none of them act like your very cool grandad. :)
This is one of the subjects presented in school that should be absolutely fascinating, and the presenter manages to beat that last vestiges of interesrt out of the subject matter.
Same here!!
Absolutely have the same reaction here. I look at stones and rocks and feel they are able to tell a story if I could understand the language. Myron helps me learn it.
As an Architect/builder who specialized in Steep, so called un-buildable sites, I often had to inform a potential client that it would be inadvisable to build on their site and I declined building the project. Often they would find another builder.
The Portland West Hills are prone to slide. Most are mud and debris flows that can cause significant damage but are not, so far, catastrophic. In the Columbia River Gorge, catastrophic, deadly slides have occurred and evidence of ancient slides abound, some are still moving.
Several of the Portland sites I declined to build on have suffered from slides over the past 50-years, while none of the sites I built on have had issues. I also approach building on steep slopes differently than most other builders as I drove an array of steel pilings into bedrock rather than the typical post tied onto a poured concrete plinth/pad or shallow concrete piling. If no bedrock was available at a reasonable depth as indicated by a core sample. I didn't build. If overburden existed above the site, I didn't build. If other slide indicators, as described in your very informative video were present, I didn't build.
I often see housing developments built right under potential slide areas and I just have to shake my head and question the lack of critical thinking so apparently missing. Profit before lives?
Interesting!
Also likely because of red tape. Zoning codes often don't allow for anything other than single family homes to be built, which if you ask me, is a giant misuse of land, especially when it comes to flooding, landslides, or forest fires. Turns out you don't need to build in shady areas if the existing areas allowed for anything denser than a ranch house
@@Demopans5990 Even then, the US has so much land. But that may actually be the problem, for so long you could just easily expand and realize the single family homes, that it's now culturally so entrenched, it's hard to abandon, even if the drawbacks have become rather obvious.
But yeah, i do think it's geology that to a degree saved Switzerland from sprawling out of control. The very limited amount of save to built on land, has driven land value up to a degree, where single family homes are not really a sound investment.
We need more Teachers like Mr. Cook. Thank you for all you do for us.
Hi Myron!
My house was built on a hill in 1950 (fairly lax building codes at that time) so I have long been concerned about seismic liquifaction of the earth mound under my foundation.
One thing I have going in my favor is a colony of Locust trees with theie spreading roots.
I have encouraged the Locust tree roots to form a basket around my dirt mound and I hope that will help hold it all together in the (admitedly unlikely) event of a seismic episode strong enough to cause concern (since I live outside of Baltimore, not known to be particularly siesmically active).
I appreciate this video because I take this very seriously.
I must say, you did some great demonstrations to aid in visualizing the hydraulic pressures involved in driving landslides.
Wow, the scale of those very large landslide complexes makes me feel very tiny in comparison.
I was looking at a model townhome in Sedona Az. Up against a magnificent, red, shear cliff. Walked out onto the back patio and looked up. I saw a boulder about the size of a 2 car garage nearly straight up. "Who in the world,..." I thought as I quickly left the death trap.
The Turtle Mountain landslide in southwestern Alberta is particularly impressive. A jumble of house size boulders extending kilometers from the mountainside that collapsed, extending through the town. They found an infant crying atop one of the boulders; amazing that anyone in the path survived.
In the "they shouldda knowed" department: this landslide was not natural; it was caused by badly engineered coal mines in the mountain. So easy to dig straight into the mountain at the base!
i presume this would be visible on Google Earth. i will take a look at it after the video is finished. i never heard of this incident and hope that everyone that could be saved, was.
Check out the slide in Greece for a massive induced slide
Search Google Earth for Turtle Mountain, the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre appear on the edge of the slide. The boundary of the slide shows how massive it was.
The infant story is an urban legend. Think about massive boulders from an entire half of a crumbling mountain and any set of circumstances where a baby gets tossed from a house and lands safely on top of one.
You have the best youtube channel I know. It is about integrity, love to watch it.
Sadly the La Conchita slide law suits awarded the victims with tons of money and financially ruined the guy with the avocado farm at the top of the cliff even though expert witnesses said his irrigation had nothing to do with the land slide. It had rained 40 inches that year, nearly three times the yearly average but they had the nerve to blame the farmer. The county also got off scott free even though they allowed people to build homes in a well known hazard site and did not inform those owners of the risks. So the one guy who had absolutely nothing to do with the idiocy of living in La Conchita paid with his entire livelihood and property was taken from him. It was one of the greatest miscarriages of justice I've ever seen.
A potentially life saving video. Much appreciated!
I love your videos.
You are to geology as Marty Stouffer is to wildlife, Bob Ross was to painting.
Thank you for sharing with us 💗
Thank you so much 😀
I live near Oso, I remember vividly driving through the slide the day they cleared the road.
The scary thing that few talk about is what's heavily suspected to have influenced the slide is how the hillside was logged back in the old days. Because of how they logged and terraformed the hill it created an unnatural funnel for rainwater down the slope, eroding and weakening the soil and causing it to be deeply unstable. And worse than that, their methods were apparently no uncommon throughout the whole PNW - which means there's certainly more to come in the future.
I drove through that summer. I remember it vividly.
I just thought I would paste a comment in this same video:
"I remember driving through the landslide in Oso, WA right after it happened (after the hwy was reopened of course) it was devastating . I spoke with a couple Sauk-Suiattle natives and they said their grandmothers called it "The Walking Valley" and knew not to build in that specific area."
25 Years ago I was a gullible east coast resident looking for a place to retire in the mountains of western Colorado for retirement purposes. I had picked out a location and was back in the east coast browsing over topo maps while waiting for the paperwork to finish. It appeared that there was a couple of square miles of mountain missing above the house I was looking at combined with a large area below the tentative home that appeared to have extra mountain material. Nearby real estate advertisements talked about a "seasonal pond" part-way up the mountain. I placed a quick telephone call to the real estate agent agent asking if there were any old geological reports about the area. I was "reassured" by the agent that it wasn't steep enough for a landslide, but he would look into it.
Two days later I received a phone call from the agent , and his first words were "you were right". - it was a marked "landslide/slope failuredisappeared
I just love the time every few weeks we get to spend online watching your videos and learning. This was one of the few that wasn't hard for me, since here on Hawai'i Island it's very easy to see the scarping and slumps from old landslides. So when you were showing the views from your drone i was easily picking out the features of the slides.
Very nicely done. I'm recalling landslides both historically and recently in southcentral Alaska. Of course the Lituya Bay event was enormous, but there were so few people there it was not som harmful. The 1964 quake, magnitude 9.2 coerced many potential locations to slide, both above ground and below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. In November of 2022, a landslide in Haines killed a couple of folks as their homes were washed into the sea. Thanks for the great perspectives!
What a helpful video you have made and shared with us. We can now see the bigger picture and know where unscrupulous developers are pushing their luck with new housing.
I’ve long wondered how developers get away with building houses and developments in ecologically dicey areas. They should be required to get a geological threat assessment that’s made available to the public before getting a license to build and should be held responsible if they chose to build in a bad area and people die. People do such selfish and reckless things putting others at risk in the pursuit of profit.
Thank you for sharing your incredible knowledge!
So much of California is a slide risk. It always amazes me just how stubborn some home owners are, even when warned.
Another great TH-cam geologist who explains geologic processes “the rest of us can understand!😊
So there's a slump. The exposed head scarp is no longer buttressed and the area behind it becomes prone to slumping. That continues back up the underlying features until it plays out. Since most inclines are nonlinear, in many cases slides could get bigger until it does play out? Are the underlying features that lead to slides damaged enough during slides/slumps to make the debris field stable? Great info as always. My father was a HS science teacher who acquired a geology degree over time. He would have loved your videos.
Thanks for sharing such fascinating geology! I've taken a particular interest in landslides and have been mapping out landslide events that make headline news or posted via social media. By mapping out these events, its hard not to see that, more times than not, landslides happen along certain geological formations, which I still need to gather more notes to say for sure. I never tire keeping record and studying the geology of landslide regions ... there's always something new to learn. Your presentation gave me a greater understanding of the dynamic process of landslides! Another ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ geology lesson!
You have a neat hobby!
With the attention span of a gnat, I watch your videos from beginning to end. Listening to every word, picturing every drawing and explanation. The Morgan Freeman of geologist! I got hooked after coming across the scablands story.
Thank you so much 😀
Another great lecture. Thank you very much professor.
thank you for this. i live in an Appalachian holler in eastern KY, and hoping to buy my own property nearby soon. landslides are probably the thing that keeps me up at night, living in such a geologically crazy place, lol. i've looked at geologic maps from my local university, but they only notated potential debris flows on the taller peaks in my county, nothing about the one i live on. so i've felt the need to do a deeper dive, and there's definitely a lot of these features all over the place where i'm at. seeps, springs, and debris flows among the ridges and valleys. the road i live near to is called Spout Springs rd., and as the name suggests, it had a very nice spring nearby that served this community for decades. if i knew how much a geologist charges for their services, i would probably feel better employing an expert, if i could afford it.
Myron, you keep knocking them out of the park! This was another fantastic video and I deeply appreciate you doing these. Once you learn how to spot things like scarps, moraines, clusters of lakes, and fossilized sand dunes you can never unsee them. You start to see and appreciate the history embedded in the landscape that has been staring you right in the face the whole time. It is magical and deepens a person's appreciation of time and space.
Glad you like them!
Thank you for making the measurements easily understandable for Europeans.
Interesting how LIDAR images made the underlying ancient landslide boundaries so clear.
Thank you Myron for this outstanding public service!
Just a fantastic video, Myron! Not only fascinating from a geology perspective, but also, almost any one, after having watched this video should be able to see the telltale clues of a landslide prone terrain.
I really Like Your style. Always so informative without sounding like you're talking down. It's like we're going on the learning adventure.
This video in particular really got me thinking.
it's like chatting with a buddy over a cup of strong coffee and a fat slab of pie.
Thank you my friend, I will never see the landscape the same again. I found two easily recognizable slumps on the west side Green Mountain, west of Denver. You would see them at a glance, they are only 5-7 decades old. Great lesson Myron!
Great in all ways. Soft voice, precise to the point of the subject, theory and practice. Just amazing.❤
Wow!! This is an eye opening video. I'll take a closer look at my home and property after watching this. Thanks for the education!!
Another great lesson Mr Cook. Thank you again for taking the time to share your knowledge.
My pleasure!
Your an amazing geologist and professor. Thank you for bringing this information to the world in a profound explanation tion. Your drone footage is outstanding, and very high quality. I don't think you would be able to produce a higher quality educational video. Nice work! Looking forward to the next one Myron.
As a delegate from the Miami Florida Airport Landslide Authority, I must say I enjoyed your presentation very much. We need your your help with a problem that our resident astrologer predicted could occur as a result of landslides in our area. (planetary alignments and that sort of thing)
We have plenty of government money to fund your project.
Sincerely,
Harvey Gruntsplatter
MFALA
Thanks for another well done lesson in geology.
I was living in Santa Barbara near La Cochita during the time of both slides. They were both heavy rain years. 1995 had two 500-year rain events, 10 Jan & 10 March. The 2005 rain came down more or less steadily over a week or 10 days. The soils were just clay muddy, very slide prone. Many slumps are visible along that stretch of Hwy 101. After the 1st slide a retaining wall of big steel I-Beam piles with timbers secured by the I-beam channels had been put in place along the warning signs about the slide dangers.
People stayed anyway and even moved ther due to cheap property values. Leading up to the 2005 slide water pressure at the base of the slide was causing water to spray out between timbers. Many people left, but several stayed with the deadly consequences.
Ironically, an avocado rancher at the top of the plateau was sued, accused of “overwatering”. The rancher lost - crazy Cali!🤦🏻
If they had two 500-year rain events in the same year, that tells us they don't actually know what the 500-year rain event is, and their current estimates are way off.
Avocados are a thirsty crop, but I dont put it past Americans to put overly litigous. They need 70 liters for a single avocado, there other water intensive crops that we love like almonds and oranges but damn that shit is insane. Maybe the farm shouldnt have been so upstream so to speak.
It was winter, nobody irrigates their orchards at that time of year. Compared to the amount of rain received, it would be nearly impossible to irrigate an equivalent amount of water, let alone pay for it.
@@scottyallen7237 Good context, I meant to comeback and add to my previous comment that also maybe folks shouldnt have set up downslope of a historically dangerous area.
There was a lot of debate if Ventura County should forcibly evict people from living there in La Conchita. There may have been warnings posted. People who lived there were aware of the risk, but may have rationalized false comfort from the temporary barrier installed in an attempt to stabilize the slope. People are still living there today.
I remember dad telling me about the Hebgen Lake slide. As a kid he and his whole family used to fish and camp there. I have also heard that the north face of Mt Helena is an ancient landslide area. Your videos have encouraged me to make some road trips around the Wyoming/Montana/Dakotas area.
Very, very interesting Myron. Thanks.
These landslides with their bulging hills & lake formation, might be the answer for the Green, un-conformity boundary layer that is found in New Mexico, & elsewhere right? Thanks Myron, our Geology Guru!
Very educational. Thank you for the excellent patient geology.
Its always a great day when Myron Cook gives us another fantastic video! I had to go to the bank today and they had a print on the wall and it was fun to try and work a geologists eye on it. I counted 20+ layers in a portion of it, I just wish I knew where the photo was taken so I could learn more about.
When you talked about landslide scars I hope Im not too presumptious in my own understanding to say that you were cleverly standing right on top of some! I absolutely love the way you structure these lectures, I know Id be just as engaged in a classroom setting with such perfectly curated visual aides.
Now I know why they always called them escarpments on Time Team, cause it was typically the result of erosion and/or landslides that made the steep surfaces theyd be rappeling and carefully digging in.
As you got to the pip demonstration I was reminded of glimpses of some hard bedrock exposed in a couple of your shots and it immediately stood at as a red flag. Relatively thin soil with an immberable is a recipe for disaster
OOH MY GOD THE MASSIVE SCARPE AT 37:05. It boggles the mind to imagine what seeing that wouldve been like. And then seeing the chain of stones indicating shoulders thatve been really weathered in the next one, mega yikes.
The view at the 3:15 mark is quite striking. I see evidence on the right side of the stream of an older bajada, or linked series of alluvial fans, a depositional feature, that is now being actively eroded by the stream. In addition to down-cutting it appears that there is a significant landslide hazard on the “hummock-y” slope between the fans and the stream bank, and that the margin of the old alluvial fan is actually a scarp created by extensive areas of the old fan slumping into the drainage.
Edit: Ooof. Myron zooms in with the drone on exactly that scene at the 27:00 minute mark.
At the 33:00 minute mark at the Oso, WA slide, one of the common features of all 4 slides seems to be that they occurred at the OUTSIDES of meander bends where erosion is progressing the fastest and “over-steepening” the slopes above the outsides of the meander bends faster than other parts of the drainage. The Oso debris flow pushed the stream across the valley and now the OPPOSITE side of the river will be the outside of the meander bend, making that the more likely location for a future slide.
Absolutely *STUNNING* area. I’m blown away 😮
It really is!
Living in Wisconsin, I don't usually hear much about landslides, but this video sure makes me think. It seems the only thing that separates a lot of these areas from sliding is time.
That't a great way to put it!
Thank you Myron Cook - this is the second time I have watched this very informative video. Your "teaching style" makes is pretty easy for anyone to learn and recognize landslide areas. There were a number of landslide or slumping residential areas in San Diego that got quite a lot of publicity a number of years back.
I am in no way a geologist, and I watch these videos out of curiosity. Who would have thought that I'll get something that practical and useful! Thank you so much!
So glad you mentioned Grand Mesa. Had the opportunity to do some soil and lake sediment coring there while working on my undergrad and those slump and rotational blocks created the ideal conditions to get data that can help us reconstruct passed climatic conductions (up until the last glacial maximum). Such a beautiful place and great video!
Ever since I watched this video a few months ago, I've been educated enough to spot mudslide areas or ancient ones all over the world when flying in my flight simulator and real life. It's absolutely intriguing to spot these areas from the air to see the true scale of some of them. In New Zealand, especially, I've noticed a few of the largest ones yet. Truly good content! Thanks Myron.
FYI. The July 12 landslide landslide atop the Palos Verdes Peninsula may have been caused by a broken water pipes under one of the homes that was lost to the slide. Prior to the slide, the neighbor got a water bill over $1000. It must have been broken for several months.
Thank you for the pointers. I have (possibly had) an interest in acquiring land with a large hillside and bottom area to build on. I most likely will not ever pursue this vision (more bark than bite) even before watching this video, but if I do, I'll have something more to consider.
Thanks. Myron I appreciate your video today as that it brought back memories of what my Geology 101 professor said about the Warm Spring Mass on a field trip in about 1995-6. He told us that it was actually slow moving landslide. The developers were building like crazy in the area. I believe it only speeded up the process of the landslide.
wow
Myron, Thank you so much!
I remember driving through the landslide in Oso, WA right after it happened (after the hwy was reopened of course) it was devastating . I spoke with a couple Sauk-Suiattle natives and they said their grandmothers called it "The Walking Valley" and knew not to build in that specific area.
Wow
This is a great piece. I've been a geologist for several decades now. This is a well put together presentation. It has a good tone and pace for education. It could be the standard for all folks that evaluate and approve building plans and civil works. Nature always wins so it's best we not get in the way. Great presentation.
Thank you!
Thanks so much, you are an incredibly talented teacher. You have given some visually stunning examples and cleverly overlaid the processes involved. I'll never look at a piece of country side again without looking for slumps and bites !! Take care from Australia.
WOW! I knew some of this. Now I know so much more. My dad in the mid 1960s vetoed several locations of land mom wanted for a weekend cabin site. He said no because of snow avalanche and/or landslide danger. He was an old school woodsman. We would drive through Oso long before people lived there. Dad was always nervous because he said it had an old history of slides. Then in college I was thinking of a geography major when a large slump type slide occurred along the Yakima River in Kittitas County WA. The professor spent a lecture about that slide, what slump slides are, and how they are very common in Eastern Washington. Now that I've been watching you and a couple of other geologists I see details in land better than three years ago. I had begun to recognize alluvial fans better. Yet this video has really furthered my vision greatly. At the beginning I missed some of the danger until you pointed them out. This video needs to be required training for city planner and developers when getting their licenses, especially in the western US. Thank you.
The part that really shocks me is that those locations are not what I would call steep. These videos are truly interesting!
Once again I find that 38 minutes and 47 seconds doesn't reach the end of my attention span when the subject matter and teacher are so well synched with each other. Thank you, Myron.
I lived on the coast in California near hwy 101. A section of that hwy lay between the ocean and a hill that was at high risk for landslides and where some had already occurred. There were homes there. After a particularly heavy amount of rain a landslide warning was issued. Some of the occupants were slow to leave. A man and his daughter went for ice cream for the other two daughters and mother at home. While they were gone the land slid burying the homes. No one survived. So sad.
When I took botany and went on my first field trip, the professor taught us just not to just look but to see the life at our feet as we hiked. It opened a whole new world for me. Now I am learning to see the actual ground I’m walking on in a whole new way. Thanks! I figure it’s better late than never…
Now do Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs. They want to build a bunch of houses in an obvious ancient slump right above Ft. Carson. I feel like I'm the only one who sees the risk.
If you're building a structure on any of these locations . . . probably just pitch a tent.
Thanks Myron for another awesome video. I learned a lot. The way springs pop out of hillsides was a big one for me. Cheers
Thank you highly for this one especially. Certainly shows the value of learning the structure and history of our environments.
24:20 these graphics really helped me better visualize/understand what you were demonstrating. i thank you very much for this. for me, it did wonders to clarify your message.
Amazing information, Thank You
Awesome! I am reminded of attending Sul Ross state in 79-80 and admiring the beautiful surroundings. Columnar joints to the west, lizard mountain and the beautiful nighttime Texas sky.
I looked into buying one of the homes in Oso Washington. Very nice, could almost fish out of the front door. I used Google and noticed the scalloped cutouts up and down the river, also patterns that indicated that the peninsula had been regularly flooded historically, so we passed. This was the green home that was hit first by the landslide. The day after the slide (less than a year after looking at the home) I realized that could have been me. I got very cold. (In school I had taken several geology classes. I am thankful for that)
wow
It's so obvious once you know what to look for, but none of this would ever have occurred to me if I hadn't seen this video.
I don't know why TH-cam recommended this video to me, but it expanded my knowledge. Thanks.
You are a good educator.
This brought back many childhood memories. I was born and raised on the East Coast of the North Island of NZ. Once the forest cover was removed to create stock farms the soft mud stone under the small layer of topsoil became very susceptible to extreme slipping. I have seen an area where water pressure blew a block of land, the size of a couple of acres off the hill side. The slide seemed to jump of the hill then slide to the bottom. by thge end of the rain event over 80% of the hill side grass was gone, either in the slide or was ripped out as the slide wnt down the hill.
Gotta love mudstone dissolving when wet!!!
Your videos are always first class, and very informative, thank you
Glad you like them!
Love his presentstions because he gets out into the field & makes learning real world not just classroom.
Sir, your expertise is very valuable and if the Chinese government followed your advice…the people might have more normal conditions to live in.
I really enjoy watching your videos. Thank you for sharing your videos with us! ❤
The more I watch and learn, the more I realize I chose the wrong profession. I should have studied to be a geologist. When I was in my early teens, If I had been exposed to geology, being taught in a straightforward, simple to understand way as is here. I would have gone in a different direction. That would have changed the course of my life. Sure wish TH-cam was available back in the 70.
Enjoy what you can
Land For Sale? Great view of the ocean. Light rolling hills between mountains. No need to consult any experts here. It will
be fine. Thirty years later after many heavy rains, earthquakes, floods, etc. and all of a sudden it is not. Great eye opening
video professor. Glad I live in the Midwest or I would be calling you!
Excellent video for the average reader. It correlates with my field experiences in the Oregon and SE Alaska coastal forests. We stabilized a land slide in 1985 on the Oregon coast with horizontal drains. It finally slid in 1997 after a hard winter storm. People rebuilt houses at the toe of the debris flow. Good video.
That was excellent! I live in the Limousin area of France, just outside an old village, in a house that began to be built about 150 years ago, on a pile of rocks, but without the kind of foundation that would be normal today. I‘m satisfied that it will be here for another 150 years, but the house is surrounded by underground streams. Your video has helped me to understand more about the geology underneath my feet. Thank you so much for your very clear, and very timely, explanation!
Wow, wow -- brilliant video, important video. This could save enormous money and more importantly many lives. Where I live in the SLC area of Utah large numbers of people live on the slopes of the mountains in areas called ... benches. Late spring of this year, thanks to the heavy rains and snowfall we received over the winter, there were a number of homes destroyed through a combination of flash flooding and minor landslides. Thankfully no one was killed, but a number of very expensive homes were destroyed or made uninhabitable.
I've learned a lot about geology and the world around me thinks to guys like you and Shawn Willsey. The use of modern tools like Google Earth and drones provide a perspective that must be changing geology as we speak...
The only vids on TH-cam i will watch over and over again.
Soil mechanics was the hardest course for me for my civil engineering degree, this really really helps visualize things like pore pressure and stuff like that
Love listening to you teach about geology.
Exceptionally well made and educational. Vital info that I never thought of or would have found out spontaneously..
I just happened to watch this video a week ago. Then I witnessed the very thing Mr.Cook was discussing. The tropical storm Hilary hit California this past week and multiple landslides occurred. A sad thing for the people who live there. If only they had this knowledge before looking for a home to buy. Thank you for all your efforts and sharing your knowledge with us.
You are an amazing teacher Myron. Thank you for your videos!
Its a good day when Mr Cook posts a new video!!!
agreed. *_Doc Rock_* makes the type of videos that youtube was made for.
@@JohnLeePettimoreIII WIsh I had a teacher like this when I was back in school!!!
@@greekpapisame. For the short period of time I was able to endure school, my teachers were almost exclusively dried up, humorless, husks.
That' was one of the most educational videos I've seen on landslide understanding.
Someone referred to you yesterday as the Bob Ross of geology. I agree. You have a soothing, gentle delivery. 😊
Oh thank you!
Excellent video. I like how you tie in geology with common situations, like buying property and building homes, that ordinary people want to do. Your presentation of geology to the average person is excellent. You don't insult us, you inform us.
Have you seen what has happened just north of LA this year after all the heavy rains ? You have really made this process more understandable. Thank you.
I did see that, the area has a geologic history of landslides.
@@myroncook Plus, there are two faults that run through there; one small, close to the ocean; one larger ones atop the scarps. Thanks again
Thank you Byron for providing knowledge that will be a great advantage looking for property to build or buy a home. In the 1980's while in the LA area attending a geology symposium we took a field trip to a new subdivision being developed located on a hillside over the San Andreas Fault with obvious slump blocks. The joke was they were building soon to be split level homes! Although it was no joke. Obvious the danger of of slumping hill sides was being overlooked. If I recall correctly the development was "red tagged" and halted due to the potential danger.
Awesome video! I love the work using the drones and Google maps. It really puts into perspective the grand size of landslides. It turns out to be an unfortunate disaster. This dives into the issue of politics, and also peoples desires and fantasies of buying a nice looking home, without realizing the dangers of the environment around them. This is really useful information. Thank you so much for sharing in such an interesting matter.
Thank you! The two debris flows you mentioned are perhaps just one, with a river cutting it into two.
I worked at that landslide for 3 days. I helped coordinate building the road, connecting Darlington to the outside world. That slide almost took out the bases of the powerline towers.
wow
Great video.
I'm reminded of Dr. Trexler and Dr. Washburn (of Juniata College), driving the GEO 101 and 102 students around central PA in the early 80's showing us places where landslides and sinkholes were likely to happen.
One particular highway cutting wasn't just in slate but with the layers dipping towards the road. They had a lot to say about that decision.
This is fascinating in light of the recent mud/landslides that resulted from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. We are certainly looking at our property much differently now!
I grew up near the Oso slide. So horribly traumatic for the entire community. This valuable information could save a lot of lives.
Provided people can be convinced to take it seriously.
Great video. 27:16 looks like a hoof print, great example there. If you imagine waterlogging as a weight pushing down on an area you start to see how it would fail. Anything that isn’t bedrock can potentially collapse like a sandcastle.
I love this guy's talks!