{"id":41924,"date":"2022-10-24T06:07:45","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T06:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=41924"},"modified":"2022-10-24T06:07:45","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T06:07:45","slug":"barry-arm-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2022\/10\/24\/barry-arm-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Barry Arm landslide in Alaska: increased rates of movement"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>The Barry Arm landslide in Alaska: increased rates of movement<\/h4>\n<p>On Friday the <a href=\"https:\/\/dggs.alaska.gov\/\">Alaska Division of Geological &amp; Geophysical Surveys (DGGS)<\/a> posted an update on <a href=\"https:\/\/dggs.alaska.gov\/hazards\/barry-arm-landslide.html\">the movement of the Barry Arm landslide<\/a>.\u00a0 It provides strong guidance for people located on or close to the fjord in the vicinity of the landslide:-<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Due to the ongoing hazard, we ask people to exercise their best judgement and, where possible, limit travel in the Barry Arm area, including Harriman Fjord, Barry Arm, College Fjord, and upper Port Wells.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Barry Arm landslide is a 500 million cubic metre landslide situated above Prince William Sound in Alaska. <a href=\"https:\/\/dggs.alaska.gov\/hazards\/barry-arm-faq.html\">The Alaska DDGS has a quite detailed description of the landslide<\/a>, which has been moving since at least 1957.\u00a0 However, one section is causing particular concern, as per this image:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41927\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41927\" class=\" wp-image-41927\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/10\/22_10-Barry-Arm-1.png\" alt=\"The rapidly deforming section of the Barry Arm landslide in Alaska.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/10\/22_10-Barry-Arm-1.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/10\/22_10-Barry-Arm-1-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/10\/22_10-Barry-Arm-1-768x576.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-41927\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>The rapidly deforming section of the Barry Arm landslide in Alaska. <a href=\"https:\/\/dggs.alaska.gov\/hazards\/barry-arm-landslide.html\">Image by Katreen Wikstrom Jones of the DGGS, State of Alaska<\/a>.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>This section of the slope is known as the Kite, although adjacent areas to the right on the image are also actively moving. A very large rear scarp has formed at the crown of the Kite, as indicated by the arrow in the image.<\/p>\n<p>On 16 September 2022, <a href=\"https:\/\/dggs.alaska.gov\/hazards\/barry-arm-landslide.html\">the DGGS reported that the landslide was moving at 40 to 70 mm per day<\/a>.\u00a0 As the image above shows, the section that is active is located directly above the fjord.\u00a0 A major failure would likely trigger a displacement wave, although the size will depend on the volume of failure and the dynamics of the movement.<\/p>\n<p>The landslide is located at 61.139, -148.169, and is clearly visible on Google Earth.\u00a0 There is much that is unknown, most notably the thickness of the moving mass.\u00a0 Unfortunately, access is currently restricted due to the risk associated with being on the water in the vicinity of the landslide.<\/p>\n<p>Forecasting the likely future behaviour of large, unstable rock masses is very difficult.\u00a0 Loyal readers will remember the trials and tribulations faced by the monitoring team, and the local residents, of the <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2014\/10\/29\/mount-mannen-1\/\">Velsemannen rockslide in Norway<\/a>, which repeatedly went through phases of accelerated movement that did not lead to failure.\u00a0 Indeed, in this case a large-scale collapse is not inevitable, but the risk is high.<\/p>\n<p>The DGGS will post a further update on Friday &#8220;unless significant changes warrant earlier updates&#8221;.<\/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>The Barry Arm landslide in Alaska: increased rates of movement in recent weeks has led to new warnings to people on or near to the fjords in the area.<!-- 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":41927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[340,469,959,725,310],"class_list":["post-41924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","tag-alaska","tag-featured","tag-landslide-report","tag-north-america","tag-rockslope-failure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41924","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=41924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}