![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/01\/12_01-Tumbi-1-e1327948065979.jpg\" "\\"12_01")
<\/a>http:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/news\/world\/fears-for-life-as-landslide-hits-png\/story-e6frg6so-1226253126412<\/p><\/div>\n
The article suggests that the landslide occurred at the site of a limestone quarry (of which more below).\u00a0 Certainly the rock would appear to be limestone with quite a thick soil layer.\u00a0 The very planar rear scarp would suggest a large, unfavourable joint as the release plane.\u00a0 The block at the top on the left is still sitting on this joint and may be unstable.\u00a0 The joint either has a very weathered surface and\/or is draped by soil from above.<\/p>\n
There is also a good overview photograph from the Namorong Report website<\/a>:<\/p>\n It is interesting to see the way in which the lower part of the\u00a0 landslide has bifurcated down two drainage paths – unusual but not at all unprecedented.\u00a0 Of more interest is the apparently large lateral margin scarp on the far side of the landslide, below the trees, which suggests that the landslide has removed a considerable volume of material on that side.\u00a0 It is hard to tell, but this does not seem to be replicated on the nearside.\u00a0 To me this suggests quite a complex landslide process (although this does not mean that the triggering process itself was complex). This does suggest that if a meaningful investigation of this landslide is to be undertaken then it will need someone who really knows how to interpret landslide processes.\u00a0 It is not likely to be straightforward in any way.<\/p>\n At the time of the landslide there were suggestions that it was linked to the LNG pipeline being built through the area by ExxonMobil.\u00a0 It now appears that the hillslope was a limestone quarry associated with the project<\/a>, which fits with my observations of the area at the crown of the landslide<\/a>.\u00a0 There is a pdf online here<\/a>,with an Esso Highlands logo, entited “TUMBI QUARRY (QA1) Resettlement Action Plan”, which states that “Tumbi Quarry, known as QA1, is required for aggregate to be used by the Project in the Komo area. The Project will be leasing the quarry from Hides Gas Development Corporation (HGDC) for an estimated two year period, depending on aggregate requirements of the Project, after which the quarry will be returned to HGDC.”<\/p>\n The LNG watch<\/a> blog has a post by Dr Kristian Laslett of Ulster University<\/a>, which notes that the site had been blasted in the days leading up to the landslide.\u00a0 This seems to be supported by various news reports, although of course there is no proof either way.\u00a0 It seems entirely plausible, though not certain, that the landslide could have been triggered by blasting.\u00a0 There are many previous examples of landslides being triggered by quarries.<\/p>\n It seems to me that an investigation of this event is urgently required.\u00a0 However, the investigation does need to be undertaken by an open-minded, independent and very experienced team as the landslide is complex.\u00a0 IF the quarry was the cause or trigger for the landslide, and if it was providing rock for the Exxon-Mobil project, then this is surely somewhat significant.<\/p>\n Given the focus on the Deepwater Horizon accident a couple of years ago, I am amazed that the mainstream media are not pursuing this story with some alacrity.\u00a0 One would also hope that Exxon-Mobil will fund a proper investigation of this, and that they will look again at any other quarries that are providing rock for the pipeline project<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An update on the Tumbi Quarry landslide, Papua New Guinea. The slope may have contained a quarry from an Exxon-Mobil pipeline project <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":4201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[469,959,313,471],"class_list":["post-4200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","category-uncategorized","tag-featured","tag-landslide-report","tag-papua-new-guinea","tag-quarry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200","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=4200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2012\/01\/12_01-Tumbi-2-e1327948424109.jpg\" "\\"12_01")
<\/a><\/p>\n