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Published on Wednesday, February 3, 2016

North America Landslide in 30 Years

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North America Landslide in 30 Years

Alaska is such a wide and large are with many regions that have no population that quite often things can shift and change on phenomenal levels without anyone being able to notice. This past October such a thing happened. A long a remote mountain on the Southeast side of Alaska a landslide spilled two hundred million metric tons of rock into ocean, that is equivalent of the weight of 1,104,972 blue whales hitting the water. Throwing rock and debris and also launching a tsunami that could be measure nearly one hundred miles away on a tidal gauge.

 

How Do They Know?

 

How exactly do researchers tell when these types of events occur without witnesses? With the use of scientific equipment researchers were able to find out about the event after it happened. Reading the reports for the equipment they were able to determine the magnitude of the landslide and found out that it was the world's largest in many years. The landslide of 1980 was even shadowed by the magnitude of the one in Alaska. Aerial photos showed the after affects of the tsunami which includes the way the trees were stripped off of the island. Adding geological equipment to remote locations such as that one allow researchers to better gauge any such events to help them monitor the affects of climate changes around the world. In New York they are currently monitoring the frequency and number of these massive landslides on the Southeast side of Alaska to help with the tracking of the climate changes. The Southeast side of Alaska has been labeled with have many rock slides and may in fact have the highest number of large magnitude rock avalanches around the world. Colin Stark a professor of geology and geophysics from Lamont-Doherty was quoted in the Dispatch News It's the world's hotspot for these huge rock avalanches that drop onto glaciers.”

 

What Do These Findings Mean?

 

So far the number of rock avalanches around the world has increased indicating an increase in the climate throughout the world. During elevated temperatures the permafrost becomes softer allowing larger shifts in land masses. The land masses shifting is what can cause the landslides like this massive one on the Southeast side of Alaska. Glaciers will also retreat because of the climate changes as they continue to heat up the movement of the glaciers also allows the permafrost to soften in the warmer temperatures. As the climate continues to change and become increasingly and more consistently warmer people will begin to be able to notice the affects of massive landslides like this one across the world. As temperatures continue to get warmer and freezing weather becomes less consistent other areas may also begin to see massive rock avalanches due to the changing temperatures. The changes in climate around the world can very well be the beginning of many incidents that equal or even exceed the rock landslide that happened in October on the Southeast side of Alaska as the ground becomes warmer.

 

 

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Author: Vrountas

Categories: Blogs, Travel

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