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July 29, 2022
This North Carolina boulder carved a satisfying track as it slid downhill, and you can see it with lidar imagery
By Philip S. Prince A few weeks ago, after years of “lidar surfing,” I finally encountered an Appalachian boulder that left clear evidence of its sliding path down a mountainside. Large boulders are common throughout all of topographically rugged Appalachia, but they typically reveal little or no evidence about their paths from upslope sources to their current resting places. This Macon County, North Carolina, boulder is a rare exception, as …
July 5, 2022
Lidar imagery reveals interesting details of debris flow movement in the eastern Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina
Lidar imagery provides a way to track downslope material movement of old flows that is otherwise difficult or impossible to see in the field, which is particularly significant in forested Appalachia. This post highlights some interesting debris flow styles and paths now hidden by vegetation in Pisgah National Forest in Transylvania County, North Carolina. The age of these failures is unknown, but they likely occurred in 1916 during an extreme tropical precipitation event in the area.
April 5, 2022
Real sandbox model meets “numerical sandbox” model…an interesting comparison of dry granular media and discrete element simulation
By Philip S. Prince Back in February, I saw several references to the CDEM discrete element modeling tool on Twitter. One of the example simulations reminded me of a “real” sandbox model I made a couple of years ago while experimenting with different material properties. The two results are shown below, with the CDEM example on the left and the real sand model on the right. The CDEM example above …
March 8, 2022
Lidar reveals geologic details of the “worst” coal mine in the Valley of Virginia
Despite its apparently good location, all was not well at the Altoona Mine. Coal seams in the mine were too distorted and mixed with surrounding rock to be easily extracted, leading to its ultimate failure. Early 20th century geologist Marius Campbell addresses this issue at length in the 1925 report The Valley Coal Fields of Virginia, twice calling Altoona’s location “the worst” in the general area and the obvious reason for the mine’s closure.
February 14, 2022
The waddling boulder…a storm-induced trundle* event?
This was (and remains) the first and only boulder I have personally seen that has rolled or tumbled and come to rest recently enough for its track to be visible in the field. I thought the diagonal gouge marks were particularly interesting. For whatever reason, they caused me to visualize a slow, “waddling” rolling style like that of an American football or rugby ball rolling downhill.
January 25, 2022
Two mappings of a folded thrust fault in the Appalachian Valley and Ridge, 100 years apart
These klippen are made even more interesting by the fact that they were mapped and correctly interpreted in 1924. Comparing these maps separated by 98 years and considerable changes in land use, geologic exposure, tectonic understanding, and imaging technology is very interesting to me. The same patterns and structural relationships are obviously present in both to a high level of detail, which is impressive given the much larger scale of the 1924 map project.
December 3, 2021
“Squirrel tail” synclines in the Appalachian Valley and Ridge
I settled on “squirrel tails” because Bartholomew and Lewis’ cross sections of the features reminded me of how a squirrel drapes its tail over its body and head. I am not sure if this is an effective comparison or not, but the overall approach seems to have served humans well when it comes to mentally organizing patterns of stars in the night sky. This structural style came across my radar after I mapped a similar type of structure ~25 miles (40 km) to the southwest, near the town of Max Meadows itself.
November 17, 2021
Another intersection of lidar and 19th-century observations at the Silas McDowell slide, Macon County, North Carolina
McDowell described the slide as a “violent shock” which opened a “chasm” that remained visible for many years after the initial event. The date of the slide is unknown, but it probably occurred during the 1850s.
November 2, 2021
A mid-1800s description of landslide topography meets 21st century lidar at Split Mountain, Haywood County, North Carolina
The “mystery” of Split Mountain specifically refers to episodes of falling rock, formation of lumpy “hillocks” on previously smooth slopes, split and tilted trees, and cracked ground that gave the mountain its name in the mid-19th century. Interestingly, none of the features Clingman described are readily apparent today, allowing the mystery to persist.
June 22, 2021
Low-displacement landslides explain unusual West Virginia landscape features visible in lidar imagery
Like so many older landslides in the Appalachians, the significance and cause of these features is unknown. Because they are so numerous and are only visible using lidar data acquired in 2016, they may represent an untapped resource of useful information about the recent history of Appalachian landscapes.
