7 March 2014

Two interesting new landslide videos – Birling Gap and San Leo

Posted by Dave Petley

Birling Gap

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Birling Gap, Sussex, 4th March 2014

Birling Gap in Sussex, on the south coast of England, has suffered high rates of erosion in the storms of this winter.  On 4th March Eddie Mitchell caught on camera a substantial collapse event, as shown in the screenshot above.  This is well-described in a Sussex Express article, and is available on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o56NWgAWWOE

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The collapse event is quite interesting.  If you look carefully you will see that it was initiated at the foot of the cliff, after which the collapse rapidly propagates upslope. The area that collapsed had been cordoned off because a large crack had appeared across the cliff top.  Rockfalls are the usual erosional process on this section of cliff; this is undoubtedly just one of many this winter, which has seen seven years of erosion in two months.  Sadly this is now threatening a set of historic cottages, whose loss now seems inevitable within a few years at most.

Erosion on the cliffs of Birling Gap is a serious problem.  The National Trust have a nice video about the issues:

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San Leo, Italy, 27th February

A large landslide occurred at San Leo in Rimini, Italy on 27th February.  The aftermath of the slide has been captured with a UAV-mounted camera, and is available on Youtube:

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Thanks to Doug Stead and Margherita Cecilia Spreafico for highlighting the video to me.