Video of unusual landslide - on FLAT land

I guess it is some kind of strange tectonic activity.

I've lived in Calgary before, and used to travel in BC as much as possible (love it!), and as anyone here knows who lives in a mountainous area, the debris from old slides is quite common - what I'm trying to say is that I've seen the residue of thousands of slides - and never anything close to this. Of course I would never say just because I haven't seen something doesn't mean it doesn't exist, as some do on here, I just did not think a landslide would occur so far from the actual hill/mountain.

You get a better idea of how flat the land is and how far away the hills/mountains are at about 2:15 in the video.

Looks like a slag pile at a mine giving way to me. Many disasters in my state have been the result of them.

Sturzstrom

originally posted by: FatherStacks
Looks like a slag pile at a mine giving way to me. Many disasters in my state have been the result of them.

Could be possible, but even in Russia I don't think they would locate that a few feet from a road, and if this is a somewhat isolated region that may be the only/main road in the area. I guess knowing if there ever was a mine there would help.......

originally posted by: Indigent
Sturzstrom

Thanks, yes, that looks like it.

I have actually studied some geology and have never heard of that term before.

A sturzstrom (German word composed of Sturz (fall) and Strom (stream)) is a unique type of landslide consisting of soil and rock which has a great horizontal movement when compared to its initial vertical drop — as much as 20 or 30 times the vertical distance. By contrast a normal landslide will typically travel a horizontal distance that is less than twice the distance that the material has fallen.

a reply to: FatherStacks

I was thinks slag pile as well but I wonder if maybe heavy rains and over burden maybe ? The land looks too flat to actually slide but something big pushing it along ...strange ....

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: FatherStacks

I was thinks slag pile as well but I wonder if maybe heavy rains and over burden maybe ? The land looks too flat to actually slide but something big pushing it along ...strange ....

I think the sturzstrom is the answer.

A slag pile will collapse and be finished in a matter of seconds, it will not push thousands of tons of earth over the course of five minutes as seen in the video.

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

I saw some heavy equipment in the background, and the contour of the treeless hills in the background looked pretty similar to a strip-mine operation. You'd be surprised where mining companies will place such things: Aberfan disaster Buffalo Creek disaster Just my take on it. I could be, and probably am, wrong.

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

Appreciate the video and found this fascinating to watch it comb over the road like ooze. My money's on the sturzstrom theory that Indigent posted. I hope I never see one for realsies because I know myself and would be really compelled to stand in it at the edge at which point, my impulsive action/stupidity would lead to a most awful end.

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

WOW! That is one of the most Freaky, Fascinatingly Scary Things I have ever seen! Never before have I seen anything like THIS! A slow-Mo Creeping Death!! Wow! Just WOW!!!!!! Later, Syx.

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

Its happened before

a reply to: PlanetXisHEREThe word I think that describes this is liquefaction.

a reply to: PhoenixOD

Thanks, that was cool but not exactly the same. Your vids are of just ice moving off a lake in late winter, cool, but I can imagine some wind and water currents moving ice off a lake near the end of winter. It is tougher to imagine a slow moving tsunami of dirt and rock mostly (thought there is some ice and snow on top) that is nowhere near an incline, hill or mountain - seemingly moving on its own accord.

One is caused by wind and water current forces, and the one in the OP caused by some kind of tectonic force.

only thing flat in that vid was the road.

originally posted by: FatherStacks
a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

I saw some heavy equipment in the background, and the contour of the treeless hills in the background looked pretty similar to a strip-mine operation. You'd be surprised where mining companies will place such things: Aberfan disaster Buffalo Creek disaster Just my take on it. I could be, and probably am, wrong.

I thought they were some kind of cranes too at first, but I'm pretty sure they were power line towers. Also, if this is the OP's definition of "flat terrain," s/he has clearly not been to Kansas. They were at the bottom of one long slope. Not sure sturzstrom or whatever it was is even necessary for an explanation here, that was a classic landslide.

originally posted by: AshOnMyTomatoes

originally posted by: FatherStacks
a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

I saw some heavy equipment in the background, and the contour of the treeless hills in the background looked pretty similar to a strip-mine operation. You'd be surprised where mining companies will place such things: Aberfan disaster Buffalo Creek disaster Just my take on it. I could be, and probably am, wrong.

I thought they were some kind of cranes too at first, but I'm pretty sure they were power line towers. Also, if this is the OP's definition of "flat terrain," s/he has clearly not been to Kansas. They were at the bottom of one long slope. Not sure sturzstrom or whatever it was is even necessary for an explanation here, that was a classic landslide.

Flat compared with the thousands of other slide sites I have seen in BC and Alberta.

Most slides are not that far from the bottom of the incline. You can see from the pic taken from the video the base of the hills/mountains is quite far off. And yes I have been to all but four of the continental states.

Also, I have some experience with mining, and have seen multiple waste pile failures, some huge ones, and trust me, that lasts for only a few seconds or maybe up to half a minute at most, not five minutes. Prove me wrong and find a video of a waste dump which is mostly solid earth (a tailings pond draining could obviously take much longer) collapsing for longer than half a minute.

All you have to do is google landslide or rockslide the pictures will show either in close proximity to high terrain, such as this:



And no pictures where you can barely see the high terrain in the distance such as in this case:

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

io9.com...

As reported by the American Geophysical Union's Landslide Blog, very little is known about the incident, except that it happened on April 1st, 2015 at Zarechnyi, which is in western Russia. It's currently the thawing season, so the conditions are right for this type of landslide.

Earthflows happen when ground materials like fine sand, clay, and silt become saturated with so much water that the earth becomes viscous. When these conditions arise on a slope, the downward pull of gravity instigates a flowing action. The speed of the earthflow depends on the degree of water saturation and the angle of the slope. It can take years — or in this case, minutes — for the materials to move down the slope.

blogs.agu.org...

michal said on 18 April 2015
My Russian wife Vera found it all on the net and where the news came from.

The land slide was on a road between Novokuznetsk and Bolshaya Talda where there is also a railline along the road which is 1500km East of the Urals so not Western Russia. The land slide took place at 1pm local time, my wife can tell from the dialect that it is same as in this part of Russia also.

About 280km ESE of Novosibirsk, near Novokuznetsk. The name Zarechnyi is a very common name and could even be a local name for a mine or tiny settlement you might not find on a map.

Search in Google Earth Russia, Kemerovo Oblast, Bolshaya Talda.

The landslide looks like it may have come from a large coal mine area. There are some diggings there like in the Hunter Valley in NSW Australia.

Hope this little research helps to further explain the incident!

I do think it would have to due with a huge coal mine caving in under lots of pressure from the thawing of snow and ice with all contents spewing from below and across the land due to displacement activity.

originally posted by: PlanetXisHERE

And no pictures where you can barely see the high terrain in the distance such as in this case:

Except that's looking PAST the slide. Look at the video around the 1:52 mark and you'll see the slope that the slide has come down. Not terribly steep, but we don't know the conditions there either.

The original video has been deleted, here it is again, of the strange landslide on FLAT land, strange tectonic activity in close proximity to all the other significant tectonic activity we have seen just over the last couple of weeks: