{"id":41733,"date":"2022-09-21T06:49:21","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T06:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=41733"},"modified":"2022-09-21T06:49:21","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T06:49:21","slug":"ecstall-river-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2022\/09\/21\/ecstall-river-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1 September 2022 rock avalanche on the Ecstall River in British Columbia, Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>The 1 September 2022 rock avalanche on the Ecstall River in British Columbia, Canada<\/h4>\n<p>On 1 September 2022 a large <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?s=rock+avalanche&amp;submit.x=0&amp;submit.y=0&amp;mswhere=blog\">rock avalanche<\/a> occurred on the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ecstall_River\">Ecstall River<\/a> in British Columbia, Canada.\u00a0 This event was identified by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ldeo.columbia.edu\/~ekstrom\/\">G\u00f6ran Ekstr\u00f6m<\/a> at Columbia University from <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2013\/03\/22\/a-very-important-new-paper-detecting-large-landslides-using-seismic-data\/\">seismic data<\/a>, and has then been tracked down and documented by a multidisciplinary team that includes <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.unbc.ca\/people\/menounos-dr-brian\">Brian Menounos<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.unbc.ca\/people\/geertsema-dr-marten\">Marten Geertsem<\/a> from UNBC, and scientists from the BC Government and the <a href=\"https:\/\/hakai.org\/\">Hakai Institute<\/a>.\u00a0 The event is well described in a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/brianmenounos\/status\/1571556366724272129\">series of tweets by Brian Menounos<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/brianmenounos\">@brianmenounos<\/a>):-<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">On 1 Sept, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lamontdoherty?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@lamontdoherty<\/a> G\u00f6ran Ekstr\u00f6m detected a seismic event north of Kitimat which turned out to be an ice\/rock avalanche on the Ecstall River that slammed into a lake and created a downstream flood similar to the event at Elliot Creek. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/7mf54wilqY\">pic.twitter.com\/7mf54wilqY<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Brian (@brianmenounos) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/brianmenounos\/status\/1571556366724272129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>It is worth looking at the full set of tweets to get an understanding of this event and of the work of the team.<\/p>\n<p>On first inspection the landslide appears to have started as a failure on a near-vertical rockface, and then to have transitioned into a classic ice\/rock avalanche.\u00a0 The source of the landslide is at about 53.965, 129.323.\u00a0 This is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planet.com\/\">Planet Labs<\/a> image of the site before the landslide:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41736\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41736\" class=\" wp-image-41736\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-1.jpg\" alt=\"Satellite image of the site of the rock avalanche on the Ecstall River in BC, collected on 1 August 2022. \" width=\"800\" height=\"471\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-1.jpg 1271w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-1-300x177.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-1-1024x603.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-1-768x452.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-41736\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Satellite image of the site of the rock avalanche on the Ecstall River in BC, collected on 1 August 2022. Image copyright<a href=\"https:\/\/www.planet.com\/\"> Planet Labs<\/a>, used with permission.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>And this is the site afterwards:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41738\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41738\" class=\" wp-image-41738\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-2.jpg\" alt=\"Satellite image of the rock avalanche on the Ecstall River in BC, collected on 20 September 2022. \" width=\"800\" height=\"472\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-2.jpg 1270w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-2-300x177.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-2-1024x604.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-2-768x453.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-41738\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Satellite image of the rock avalanche on the Ecstall River in BC, collected on 20 September 2022. Image copyright <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planet.com\/\">Planet Labs<\/a>, used with permission.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>This is a very large landslide with a long runout.\u00a0 I have tried to set up a juxtapose below to allow you to compare the two images:-<\/p>\n<div class=\"juxtapose\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-1.jpg\" alt=\"Satellite image of the site of the rock avalanche on the Ecstall River in BC, collected on 1 August 2022. \" width=\"800\" height=\"471\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-2.jpg\" alt=\"Satellite image of the rock avalanche on the Ecstall River in BC, collected on 20 September 2022. \" width=\"800\" height=\"472\" \/><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Am additional point of interest here is the image of 1 September 2022, the day of the landslide.\u00a0 The image itself is clear, except in the valley affected by the landslide.\u00a0 Is this the remains of the dust cloud?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41740\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41740\" class=\" wp-image-41740\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-3.jpg\" alt=\"Satellite image of the rock avalanche on the Ecstall River in BC, collected on 1 September 2022. \" width=\"800\" height=\"621\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-3.jpg 955w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-3-300x233.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/09\/22_09-BC-3-768x596.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-41740\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Satellite image of the rock avalanche on the Ecstall River in BC, collected on 1 September 2022. Image copyright <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planet.com\/\">Planet Labs<\/a>, used with permission.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst this landslide is in a remote location, it is causing concern about the potential impact on salmon spawning grounds.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/9138192\/northern-b-c-landslides-ecosystems-impact\/\">Global News has an article providing some detail.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The team involved in the research into this landslide are world leading, so no doubt we will see a full description and analysis of it in due course. It is a fascinating event.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<h4>Acknowledgements<\/h4>\n<p>The project team outlined above have rapidly undertaken an analysis of this event and have posted the data online.\u00a0 Thanks to them for doing so.\u00a0 The images are from the wonderful people at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planet.com\/\">Planet Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Planet Team (2022). Planet Application Program Interface: In Space for Life on Earth. San Francisco, CA. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planet.com\/\">https:\/\/www.planet.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 1 September 2022 a very large rock\/ice avalanche occurred on the Ecstall River in British Columbia, Canada.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":41738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,469,959,725,898,1205,8,347],"class_list":["post-41733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","tag-canada","tag-featured","tag-landslide-report","tag-north-america","tag-planet","tag-planet-labs","tag-satellite-imagery","tag-seismic-data"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}