31 March 2017

Point Dume: an interesting new landslide video from California

Posted by Dave Petley

Point Dume: an interesting new landslide video from California

Point Dume is, according to Wikipedia,

“…a promontory on the coast of Malibu, California that juts out into the Pacific Ocean. The point, a long bluff, forms the northern end of the Santa Monica Bay. Point Dume Headlands Park affords a vista of the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Santa Catalina Island. Zuma Beach lies to its immediate northwest.”

A video has been posted on Youtube showing a comparably large landslide that occurred close to the car park, apparently on 25th March 2017.  The landslide was apparently shot by Eric Cotsen, although there is no more information available.  The video has been uploaded in slow motion format, which is both irritating and interesting:

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The site appears to be the area of cliff shown on the Google Earth image below:

Point Dume

The approximate location of the Point Dume landslide, as shown on Google Earth.

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The development of failure is quite interesting, with a large number of small collapses, followed by a large scale movement on the right hand side of the mass, which them leads to the major collapse on the left hand side.  This is transition is captured in the image below:

Point Dume landslide

Still from the Youtube video of the Point Dume landslide.

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This may be one of the highest quality landslide videos captured to date.

Other recent landslide video posts