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FlyDrake.com via Glacier Bay National Park
Rock and debris from a landslide lie along five miles of what had been an ice-white glacier inside Glacier Bay National Park.
A massive landslide sent tons of rock and debris tumbling more than five miles down a glacier in Alaska, the National Park Service reported in an event that could be yet another sign of a warming world.
Located in a remote area of Glacier Bay National Park, the slide was so big it registered on earthquake monitors as a magnitude 3.4 event.
Officials noticed the monitor blip on June 11 but it wasn't until July 2 that a pilot passing over the site took photos that showed just how large it was, Glacier Bay National Park announced on its Facebook page.
"It's certainly the largest that we're aware of" inside the park, Glacier Bay ecologist Lewis Sharman told msnbc.com.
Larger landslides have happened over geologic time, Marten Geertsema, a natural hazards researcher for the Forest Service in nearby British Columbia, told msnbc.com, but it definitely was "one of the longest runout landslides on a glacier in Alaska and Canada in recent times."
Moreover, the force was enormous, Geertsema said. No one was present, but had anyone been there they probably "would be blown over by the air blast," he told the Associated Press.
Officials ruled out an earthquake as the trigger that caused part of the nearly 12,000-foot Lituya Mountain to give way, smothering the ice-white Johns Hopkins Glacier with dark rock and debris over an area a half-mile wide and 5.5 miles long.
Drake Olson / FlyDrake.com via AP
The landslide is viewed from above the Johns Hopkins Glacier.
One possibility is that thawing permafrost, which is ground that stays frozen for two more our years, caused the slide.
"We are seeing an increase in rock slides in mountain areas throughout the world because of permafrost degradation," said Geertsema.
"I don't know whether permafrost degradation played a role here, but we can be almost certain that permafrost exists on Lituya Mountain," said Geertsema, who reviewed aerial photos of the mountain and slide area. "Certainly this type of event could happen from permafrost degradation."
Many areas of mountain permafrost have been thawing in recent decades as temperatures warm, and some experts are becoming convinced that thawing is a factor in the frequency of rock slides, Geertsema said, pointing to data by Swiss scientists studying the Alps.
Marten Geertsema and Drake Olson
The section of rock and ice that slid off Lituya Mountain is seen here. Marten Geertsema estimates it was 200 meters, or about 600 feet, wide.
"It plays an important role," Geertsema said of climate change. "I think we have been underestimating the role it might play."
Sharman, the park ecologist, echoed that sentiment, saying he's heard from experts that "they would not be surprised" to see more such landslides inside the national park if temperatures continue to warm.
"Certainly we are seeing an increase in large landslides over the past decades," Geertsema said, citing his 2006 study that found between 1973 and 2003 the average in northern British Columbia increased from 1.3 large landslides per year to 2.3.
Moreover, he said, most of the slides in northern British Columbia are happening in the warmest years.
Landslides like this one can also be triggered by other factors, Geertsema added, such as a combination of large snowpack and a cold spring that results in a delayed and then rapid melt.
The slide itself was miles from areas used by park visitors, most of whom see Glacier Bay by cruise ship.
"You can't see it from a boat or the bay. You've got to be up flying. And it's not on a typical flying route," park service spokesman John Quinley told Reuters. "It would have been pretty horrific if you'd been camped on the glacier."
And it won't reach the bay for a long time.
The frozen ground that covers the top of the world has been thawing rapidly over the last three decades. But there is cause for concern beyond the far north, because the carbon released from thawing permafrost could raise global temeratures even higher. NBC's Anne Thompson reports for "Changing Planet," produced by NBC Learn in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
"The landslide is approximately 12-14 miles up the glacier," the park said on its Facebook page, and the glacier itself moves material towards the bay only about 10-15 feet a day. "So this debris may not reach the face of the glacier for many years," it added.
Officials are currently trying to estimate the volume of material that fell in the slide.
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In 1958, a nearby landslide, this one above Lituya Bay and triggered by a 7.7 earthquake, created a wave hundreds of feet high that washed 1,720 feet up a narrow inlet. Two people on a fishing boat vanished and three others on land were killed.
One fishing vessel was able to ride out the wave, Geertsema noted.
"They looked below them and they could see the tops of the Sitka spruce trees way below," he said. "The other boat disappeared."
Last month's slide covered more land area than the 1958 incident, but even so it probably won't go down as the biggest one by volume in North America.
"We do not know the volume of the recent landslide on the Johns Hopkins Glacier yet, but it is unlikely to break the volume record," Rex Baum, a U.S. Geological Survey expert, told msnbc.com.
What is the record? That, said Baum, would be the 2.8 cubic kilometer rock slide avalanche from the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state.
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Leave a Comment:
It could have been something as simple as the age of the rock and it's position and that is was just time for it to move. This has gone on since the earth was forming and the earth is in constant motion. Global warming had nothing to do with it.
WHEW!
thank god steve has spoken...
I was starting to think I was going to have to be PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE for my actions!
Now I know that I can just dump as much heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere as I want, without any risk or worry.
THANKS STEVE!
actually Steven is probably correct. but i know that you don't want to hear there are things in this world man can't fix.
and how much are you willing to gamble... that Steve is right?
as far as "fixing" goes; let's start by not making things worse
I live in Ohio. The average high temperature for here today is 86 degrees. It's noon and 66 degrees.
Global Cooling?
Try Texas--i/2 million trees dead from drought, lakes disappearing. But if a scientist says global warming is for real, don't believe it.
Lived in Texas my whole life & there's two things about Texas summers... hot & hotter.... has ZERO to do with anything more than it's TEXAS & it's SUMMER.
If I go back to growing up in Austin, I can remember TWICE it snowed. Three years ago we had a RECORD snowstorm in Dallas. Ten years ago we had a record ice storm.
It's called WEATHER...... stop trying to make everything into something that MAN has done.
It the big scheme of things you're going to find out that MAN ain't that important to what happens to the earth.
There's no such thing as global warming! Just ask a polar bear, better yet , watch my nat gas stocks continue to drop.
need rain
There is a real problem with associating environmental events and problems with global warming all the time. Although permafrost loss and landslides seem obvious results, along with so many things happening that were predicted to happen as a result of increasing greenhouse gases far above anything ever seen in the whole evolution of man, it is likely that argueing with trolls at this point simply puts more ammunition in the hands of the smart money that has known and accepted climate change science, but who wish to continue to profit from the status quo on their vested interests. That strategy is beginning to include all environmental problems, many of which can be addressed outside of the issue of global warming. They have already started saying that there is nothing that can be done about the problem, and by linking all environmental concerns with global warming they will be able to extend the excuse for inaction on all environmental fronts. Let all the people who want to deny responsibility continue to do so since they cannot be coerced into responsibility by anything, much less scientific facts which they cherry pick for their own preconceptions. Those who follow the environment need to be on guard for the very real problem of global corporate propaganda associating every environmental problem with global warming, which they claim cannot be addressed anyway.
Very well written, comment certainly expresses intelligence and most likely you have a great college education. Unfortunately you're completely wrong.
george,
if it is THAT easy, then I say;
Unfortunately YOU are completely wrong about HIM being completely wrong.
Youre wrong about me being wrong about him being wrong
lol
Bwaahhahhaaa. The biggest EVER! Does that mean MSNBC was around since the beginning of the world? Wow. Now I know how they are right on top of every story.
I try to be a completely rational person in all things. And I believe that Global Warming will destroy most human civilization on the planet within the next 10 years. This belief is based on the warming acceleration we're just starting to see, caused by methane released from melting permafrost. Significantly increased methane levels in the atmosphere will let almost no heat escape at night. Venus is hot enough to melt lead for this reason.
Anyway, I see two solutions:
1 - Reduce the world population by 2/3
2 - Start building nuclear fission power plants worldwide. Finance it through the IMF. Figure there will be a much shorter return-on-investment in the third world, without all the bureaucracy that costs us so much here in the US. Use the same plans for each reactor (what a concept) to get an economy-of-scale effect.
I'm not a big fan of #1. However, that will that will be the end result if we do nothing.
Can we put all the worlds politicians in front of the next one that happens??
You're right..you didn't say that. I just assumed from your post that you thought if not for the Republicans, we could fix this. I just don't see that happening. I really don't think we can stop it from getting worse either. At BEST, maybe, slow it down a touch. If the boat is leaking and you can't stop it, only slow it down...you're still going to sink. Not saying I'm against trying.....I'm not.....just seems we can't even tie our shoes anymore. So I'm not to optimistic. Keeping it real!!! LOL :)
If we are responsible for the Earths warming trend what do we do to reverse it? Yes I know, new energy sources, recycle recycle, educate, etc. Will that reverse it? I can't help but have the feeling that the only solution is a drastic population reduction. Only thing that will work. Of course this won't happen unless something crazy happens........
Too bad the GOP and the Koch Bros. wasn't down below, then maybe they will stop with the lies about global warning.
They won't be satisfied until the destroy the economy our way of life and the earth.
Obama/Biden/Pelosi/Reid-2012
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. You are funny. Especially the Obama/Biden/Pelosi comment.
It's a liberal hoax staged in Alaska to make fun of Sarah Sellout. (wink)
the planet changes over time, where there once were oceans there is now deserts. man didn't have anything t do with that. but those of you who think that you can change what mother nature has ins tore for the planet just think way too much of yourselves. you may not like it but you are not in control of the climate and the changes to it. deal with it.
As I believe humans have greatly impacted the Earth; there are two sides to this story. The Earth is an ever evolving entity; it moves and changes daily. We now have high precisions instruments and satellites that can record things that have never been recorded. The Earth will change and freshen its self. It has done this since it was born and will do this long after we are gone. Yes!!! There is “global warming”; man caused and earth caused. What is important is to respect the Earth and we humans do not do that. I often think and wonder what American would look like had we embraced Native Americans and enmeshed their ways into the European ways when this Country was first settled by the strangers of the land.
Hmmmm, the scientists seem confounded as to the cause; I wonder if gravity was involved?
this has NOTHING to do with climate change. . . everyone knows its GAWD punishing the wicked sinners in alaska . . .
It's happened before; it'll happen again. I'm not an enviro-type, but it's clear that we're in a warming trend, though a few years ago we had record cold & snow in north america. Clearly, it's better if we can eliminate as much pollutants as possible, but the Sahara Desert use to be an ocean too!
Mankind doesn't help, but I get completely ticked off when people make references that Americans are in large, responsible for it. I've travelled all arouind the world, and we have a very clean environment and less pollution than many Asian cities, where breathing is almost impossible. True, we have a lot of cars, but the balance of every day life has to be factored when assesing impact.
it seems that mommy earth wants us out and she is getting rid of us. get used to it and do not have children. she have been trying to kill us for many years already but we have been a pest impossible to eliminate without suicide on her part. she is now on a path to self destruct.
"Larger landslides have happened over geologic history"
How did man-made climate change cause these to happen?
it didn't;
and natural factors cause global warming (then and now);
the difference NOW is that; we are contributing by digging up eons worth of carbon and dumping it into our atmosphere within a couple hundred years
1landslide increase in 30 yrs? Sounds like climate change (global warming) to me.
That was a pretty big chunk of mountian to move all at once. Perma-frost melting, Hmmmmm, could be. Ice building up on the mountian until its weight caused the land underneath to give, Hmmmmm, could be.
One thing to also consider. Gravity and mass. After years of accumulation of ice, and sun albeit not seemingly warm, freezing and unfreezing on a very steep mountain will eventually lose to the effects of gravity. Mass wasting I believe. A warming planet may be part of it, but I expect gravity and an unstable mix of rock and ice simply simply loosing its grip were more of a plausible explanation.
Yeah!, THAT too.
For what ever reason these types of changes are happening they're going to happen regardless of what anyone says or does now. It's too late to radically change anything. The kitty it out of the bag if it's happened because of greedy, distructive humans. We have personally reduced our carbon foot print but I know overall it doesn't help much. We've become an instance gratification, disposable society from material things to relationships. If you haven't watched the story of stuff do a bing or google search and see what happens every day in the manufacturing industry. Then be afraid for the furture of our children and our grandchildren We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children!
It's gotta be Bush's fault.
So, we see some summer melt and get into a panic.
Dweebs.