Massive land slide in remote part of Alaska

[huckbucket]

Story

The scientists estimate that the slump contains roughly 68 million metric tons of rock ...
The geologists estimate that the landslide started at roughly 9,800 feet (3,000 meters) above sea level on a nearly vertical cliff, and then ran for roughly 3 miles (4.8 kilometers)

[Soups]

Awesome...literally.

[JTrue]

Drake had some great pics. Glad I wasn't camped on that glacier ski touring.

[stalefish3169]

Here are a couple more from my buddy Will's FB page.

Humbling.

[theshredder]

Woah. That's huge. Thanks for posting.

I think we'll only see more like this and that serac release that burried the highway as global warming really starts to ramp up.

[Crampedon]

Hudgeness.

Hear is another page with some info and pics-
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=83195

[cyborg]

Looks like the mountain just ripped open! That's staggering when you really consider the size

[TBS]

Shit goes big in Glacier Bay.

Here's another slide - about 20 miles away - that created a 1,700 foot wall of water heading out to sea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Li...ay_megatsunami

[BFD]

went to an interesting talk last night. The talk was mostly about the changes of the Bering Glacier. The speaker than talked about the landslide on Mount Stellar. They were able to conclude the landslide was caused by runoff water. Apparently on the face almost on the summit was a hanging glacier. Moulins formed sending water into fractures in the underlying rock. Melting and freezing led to the landslide. They were able to reach this conclusions by looking at polished bedrock next to the fracture site. La Perouse had the same charecteristics when examined. Hard to believe this could take place at the top of a mountain. Apparently there was also similiar event on Mount Steele. South facing large amount of snow for melt water and warming contributed to the events.

[abraham]

I haven't seen it, but I have friends who have, one was in Oso the day of. It made the Afghan landslide hit close to home as well. Last I saw the guesses are between 300 and 2000 people dead/missing.

[BCMtnHound]

For shits and giggles, the heaviest rock found in the area is basalt at approx 2.8-3 tonnes/cubic metre. So the Meager slide could have potentially been in the order of 134+ million tonnes :O

[splat]

In mining, a cubic yard is approximately a ton, so a cubic meter is close.
Maybe someone could do the more precise math in grams.

[abraham]

A cubic yard is ~.75 cubic meters.

[tgrweb]

testtesttest

[hutash]

It remains me of skiing in La Pagne, France. It was the weirdest terrain I had ever see. Strange mounds and pits all over. Make a round turn off the piste and you could find yourself hiking out of a fifty foot deep depression. It made no sense until I was skiing across the valley and got a bigger perspective...it was a giant landslide. A huge part of the mountain just slumped away. No idea when it happened, probably 10s of thousands of years ago, but cool none the less.