19 January 2013

An interesting landslide in the Great Smoky Mountains

Posted by Dave Petley

Thanks to Dana Soehn of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for the images and explanation and to Ellen Hardy for both bringing this to my attention and linking me to Dana.

On 16th January heavy rainfall in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina triggered a large landslide that destroyed about 200 m of Newfound Gap Road (U.S. 441).  As the National Parks Service estimate that the landslide has a volume of about 70,000 cubic metres, and at least some landslide activity is continuing, it will take a while to reopen the road.  The National Parks Service has very kindly provided the following images of the landslide: