E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
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.
Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter
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.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Poll: Confidence in organized religion at all-time low
- Survivalist made chilling video before killing wife, daughter
- Analysis: Paterno could have been indicted if he had lived
- Women in the infantry? Bad idea, female Marine officer says
- Caught on camera: Shark steals fish off pole
- Police: Wire mesh used to trap girl, 4, in bed
Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook
Leave a Comment:
The biggest question we have to ask in reguards to global warming is,how long can you tread water?
''warming eyed as possible culprit''? Stupidity eyed as making warming,and its still being denied, look at ho-lee-cow shi* for brains above me.you figure the rest out.
"Global Warming"? Everyone knows that it exists only in the mind of Al Gore who needed money because of his run for the Presidency. Heavy Sarcasm Fully Intended
"I'll love you until the Mountains wash to the Sea".......... OOPS! .............. I want a Divorce!
people on here think sarcasm means an arab tribe.
global warming is all made up, so govt. can take over this country just like they have in 3rd world countries, but first they have to divide the people, so dont let them get us fighting we need to vote for a God fearing person and get the others out.
stupid much?
Well spoken from the lips of a 1%'r
I hope if i am ever put on trial I get a jury of right wing deniers. Facts, evidence, trends don't mean anything to them.
Uh huh...and it was liberal progressives who let OJ off, who let Casey Anthony off...who let...
For those who are skeptics of global warming. The larger concern is the thawing and melting of the arctic tundra, which is beginning to occur. As this occurs, it will release 1.5 trillion tons of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is 25 times the greenhouse gas vs. CO2. This is when runaway global warming will take off. The likely result will be the suffering and death of billions of people. That will be our legacy.
....or which global warming is just a natural part of earth.....like the ICE AGE WAS
keck,
are you telling me that you cannot contemplate the concept that NATURAL warming is coinciding with HUMAN-INDUCED warming?
(digging up eons-worth of carbon and dumping it into the atmosphere will DO THAT)
keck, you have given a very shallow response to my post.
Just like a great volcano eruption will cause problems. The natives in Alaska still mention a year that the Yukon did not break up.
Any gold in all that rubble?
gee, did man cause the volcano in iceland last year ?
.....how many billions of tons of co2 did it release ?......did man cause the volcano, or was that just a part of life on earth ?
keck,
there is only one explanation for your posts over the last year...
you are paid off
i am paid up in my taxes....so, i can say my opinion.
(or do i not have that right shallow ?)
...checking over your posts....
you just seem smart enough to realize your statements are illogical;
assuming that is true, what is your motive?
check-away; my sign is not shallow23o40492-4
If I can correctly interpret the language this article was written in - "Another possibility is that thawing permafrost, which is ground that stays frozen for two more our years, caused the slide" - to suggest that the permafrost stays frozen for two or more years, then that suggests that the permafrost must melt at some point.
Everything is cyclical and this has happened hundred or thousands of times in our past. Why we react to standard historical events is beyond me.
because; in the past; there wasn't anyone digging up eons worth of carbon and dumping it all into the atmosphere "all at once" (a hundred years is a blip);
we are drastically affecting the "natural balance of carbon" in the atmosphere; and the effect is showing.
We are holding up a magnifying glass in front of the sun... and watching the earth burn;
not a perfect analogy (but the old ones do not appear to be working on some rational-less minds)
Brian, we react when science tells us there is a problem, not when politics tells us there is not.
I did live in Alaska. The permafrost does not usually melt unless it is disturbed. It will stay froze in the summer unless the overburden is removed or radically disturbed. It is a mess when it does melt. The plaicer miners use to remove the over burden so the permafrost would melt.
That's astonishing. What a massive area. Eeek!
Global warming and cooling, also known is Climate Change, is caused by changes in the energy the Sun emits. Guess what folks, it isn't 100% constant. Sunspots, and other evidence of variable solar emissions when they occur, which man has no control of whatsoever, causes the spikes we feel on earth. Solar radiation can mess with satellite communications, but you don't think it can help melt a little snow? People are all to blame and the cure is to raise the gas taxes another $2.00 per gallon?
When man learns how to regulate the emissions of the sun, and completely control the variances of that activity, then he'll be able to set the thermostat for global warming and cooling. Good luck with that you silly liberal knuckleheads, especially with the space program your food stamp king, the President in chief, has all but eliminated.
next, Michael is going to lecture on:
"Personal Responsibility - It only applies to Republican views"
Micheal, there are other factors. It is quite simple.
CO2 has been proven to be a greenhouse gas. The concentration of CO2 has been rising steadily since the beginning of the industrial age and the increase has been rising at an accelerated rate. The figures below are parts per million:
pre-industrial 280 (estimated)
1959 318.15
1970 327.66
1980 341.26
1990 356.32
2000 371.71
2010 392.03
2012 395.77
Michael, the sun does have a lot ot do with climate, of course, but so do greenhouse gasses. Many factors affect the climate, and it would be silly to suggest that just because the sun does, nothing ELSE can.
Right out of the Teddy Roosevelt and W. Wilson playbook!If a term becomes offensive or doesn't quite catch the ear of a lot of people.well just change the term! No will notice or care.I read an article about this "name change" 3 months ago and seen the new and more refined term "climate change" used a little more each and every week.You progressives,or liberal or the real name for you,socialist,will find any ,even the slightest anomoly,and run it out as an example of "climate change"! Animal flatulation is the largest contributor of co2 gas! Why not just kill a bunch more animals,feed them to the poor starving people on earth and solve two problems at once!Oh, that's right,you would kinda loss the PETA folks,wouldn't you!
Thinking that humans have had no effect on the environment is as ignorant as thinking we all came from Adam and Eve.
Once all the ice caps melt and all that fresh water hits the ocean and desalinizes it, the jet stream will change and once that happens we won't be around to argue who is to blame.
I call it the earth getting ready to cleanse itself from a deadly virus called humankind.
Political hyperbole!
"Flash Warming" and "Flash Drought" are the new terms apparently
Gotta try to keep up the scare.
I'm no climate scientist and have no connections to Isaac Newton but the third picture seems to suggest gravity might of had something to do with this landslide.
Several years ago during the "Hole in the ozone" hysteria, my son's biology teached remarked that he noticed the lowering of the protective ozone because his photo sensitive glasses darkenedquicker due to the increase in ultaviolet light. Now that's science!
I have a big hairy mole on my a$$!...I believe man made-up global climate warming has caused it.... Vote Obama 2012 and help save my a$$!
Lucky for us we have true geniuses like Shawn Hannity to assure us that climate change & global warming are both liberal hoaxes. Otherwise I would be worried.
yep.
...and those pesky republicans caused repeated ice ages and warming cycles millions of years before.
....that stupid rush limbaugh causing the ice ages.
keck, I certainly hope you aren't suggesting that natural climate change means that humans can't affect the climate ALSO. I thought you were smarter than that.
as an earlier post explains:
forest fires occurred for millions of years before humans and forest fires occur now; both nature and humans contribute to the fires occurring now
the same with global warming
simple-logic
Socialist diatribe,nothing else!
jock i hope you dont think volcanoes were caused by man.
...maybe you arent as smart as you think.
mas,
actually; it is pure logic. and for the low-low price of: sitting quietly and thinking for a moment, you too can attain it.
The earth cools and heats up 24/7. Man did not make the landslide in Alaska. Global warming is more "Globaloney". Pull up the 14 day weather forecast at the South Pole. The expected "high" in the next 14 days is 41 degrees below xero. THAT IS THE HIGH. The low is projected to be 87 degrees below zero. These are farenheit temps. Based on those temps, nobody is worried about an ice age slamming us. People, the earth has warmed and cooled in cycles before. This coming winter Al Gore can come to my house and shovel out all of my global warming white stuff that has buried me in my driveway. Geez.
It is winter in Antarctica, genius. The science syas the earth is warming, and will continue to do so no matter how many years you keep denying it.
I refuse to believe that this is because of climate change. I simply refuse......... Hmmm, what's that sound, outside? *looks out of the window* *gets buried in a land slide*.
As a handsome, outside onlooker of American right wing politics, and intrigue, I am still shocked by one thing. That thing being the fact that you override your survival instinct, not for a noble cause, like self sacrifice, but because you want to be right, against all odds, and all proof, you simply want to be right; damn the world, damn the human race, damn the future of your children; you simply want to be right.
You the doubters, are the dinosaurs, that looked into the sky, as the meteor hurtled towards them, and thought "That looks like a really tasty, red fruit, I'm going to chase it, and have a bite".
But i ask you, for the sake of this world, please do not take the rest of us with you. We very much, like being alive.
This "theory" is nothing less than the internationalist of the 1920's was espousing about some other dire earthly catastrophy about to beset the world because of mans' evil deeds.This is crap! The climate is changing but it isn't because of man like these international socialist would have you believe.Their purpose is to get the world together so we and work towards a common goal of one world government and solution.The solution to this climite problem,if it exist,will be for the earth to cure itself.Mother Nature is a very powerful force! A force unlike anything man has ever replicated.Can man create a hurricane,tornado,sunami or any other natural force! NO!And by coming together in one big happy family and sitting around the world campfire singing songs together will not do a damn thing to stop mother nature!
Thank you Fibonacci! Grazi!
I'm sure my post will be collapsed, but I'll give it a try anyway.
First, the article stated that this land slide isn't the biggest, just the biggest on in recent times. Second they stated that the landslide registered as a 3.0 earthquake. The supposition that the landslide registered as an earthquake is not good science. No one physically witnessed the landslide so it's entirely possible that and earthquake triggered the landslide.
Read the article and understand here are the key words, "possible", "not the largest"..................let the hate comments begin
I think they can tell pretty well from the seismograph signature if shaking is due to an earthquake or a landslide. They aren't guessing.
I can't take it any more!
We're doomed!!!!!!!!!!!
Your asking people to THINK, JUST A LITTLE BIT.
The warming crowd yells, "get a rope " .
While it is possible to detect, within a value of certainty, the epicenter of an earthquake, as a geologist and son of a geologist there would have to be seismic sensors in pre-set location in such a way as to determine the origin. Without further data of the location and seeing the placement of the sensors and how they arrived at their conclusions, I wouldn't say for sure. Again it's not good science to make suppositions without the certain facts.
IT WAS THE COLDEST WINTER IN 112 YEARS IN ALASKA WITH RECORD SNOW. Why does everything the earth do need to be blamed on man/oil/USA/global warming etc?!?!! YES MORONS.... the climate DOES change and we're not going to influance that.
Clean air/water and low poloution should be the goal not this made-up global guilt crap!
Of course "warming eyed as possible culprit"
Land slides have been with us on a regular basis since the beginning of time,
BUT THIS ONE : may have been caused by warming,
or was "erosion" George Bush's fault too ?
This is really spooky stuff going on here, huh ?
Ed, maybe you should actually read the article. It is the melting of the permafrost that allowed the landslide to occur. Warmer temperatures = Melting ice = snow slides down hill.
Don't get too technical on us now.
is that how that happens?
Maybe you have touched on something brand new !
Pretty Cool!! I much prefer the arguments that I need do nothing to change my behavior to reduce the impacts I may be having on environmental changes or to even prepare for the impacts that will be experienced as a result of these natural cycles and sun output variations!
All I have to do is sit back and wait for my ride up during the Rapture. Easy peasy!
This is nothing new, has nothing to do with climate change or warming. Just the normal earth processes of erosion. Can't stand when the media, manipulates the people. Just trow in the words global warming or climate change to make headline news. I suppose the eruption of Mt St Helens in 1980 was influenced by humans also!
this is the ignorance we are up against
Mt St.Helens was caused by the Armidrillians who just hate humans and want us all dead.They are behind this climate control thing!We are just like frogs in a pot on the stove waiting and watching as the Armidrillians turn up the heat. I guess I just go kill myself!Yea Right!
SCIENCE tells us what is causing climate change and global warming. Some of you can just keep your heads in the sand or up your butts. ( wherever you feel most comfortable.
What do you suppose we do ? We will have to live/ die with our choices. Mother earth is very unforgiving .....If the damage is indeed caused by humans ...then we should be wiped out ..... We had our chance and screwed it up ....
Science also told us 30 years ago that breast feeding newborns was not as good as formula milk. Duh!
No that was capitalize at work tell you that.
@ Greg ......what ?
Sorry onewhospaidallhislife was trying to make a comparison with breast feeding. *Capitalism. The driving force behind wanting you to purchase formula instead.