Arizona highway collapses.....

Originally posted by onthedownlow

Originally posted by pointr97

Originally posted by onthedownlow

Originally posted by pointr97

Originally posted by onthedownlow
I have driven that road a few times- pretty freaky! Its close to the Eastern rim of the Grand Canyon, and that section of road runs along a rock shelf that looks like the plate ran over the top of the abutting plate. Very Interesting!

Do you think it is close enough to be a result of the Canyon 'shifting'?

I would imagine that errosion could be a plausible reason, but if I recall it correctly, that section of road runs just west of a large rock shelf for 20 to 30 miles. I know very little about geology, but it looks like part of the desert floor just lifted up out of the ground as if it ran up on the plate next to it. It seems like there could be issues if the plates pulled apart. I will look for a picture of the rock shelf and post it. And again, I know hardly anything about geology.

I initially thought the same thing, that the road 'raised'.....other way around, a good portion of the road dropped. [/quote

Sorry, I am not sure how to post pictures. I was suggesting that the plates coming apart could cause the desert floor to sink, as when I drove the area last fall it looked like a gazillion years ago the easterly plate had run aground on the westerly plate. if the plates seperated, the floor would have resettle.

I'm sorry, I wasn't being critical, because I initially viewed it as the floor raised, and was thrown off when i saw that a good portion sunk. My apologies, I meant no offense as 'correcting you'.

Originally posted by pointr97
For scale.

Quick call Ghostbusters, this looks just the street before they enter the Empire State Building in the Movie...

Seriously though, this IS really weird, normally we see cave ins, like the road dropping, but this seems like its rising?

thanks for sharing

reply to post by Teye22


LOL...glad i'm not the only one dating myself, but i thought the same thing about Ghostbusters analogy Are you the keymaster?

reply to post by pointr97


None taken. Awesome post, I wonder what caused it- it will be interseting to here what conclusion they come up with. Anybody that needs to make that drive is going to end up going 3-4 hours out of their way now, so I imagine that they will need to fix the problem ASAP.

Edit: ADOT says the detour is only 45 minutes. MY bad

Reports are the road is unstable and cracks continue to grow.

Here is another view:



Photo Source

Arizona Geology

Originally posted by onthedownlow
reply to post by pointr97

 

None taken. Awesome post, I wonder what caused it- it will be interseting to here what conclusion they come up with. Anybody that needs to make that drive is going to end up going 3-4 hours out of their way now, so I imagine that they will need to fix the problem ASAP.

Totally agree, there isn't very many options up there for alternate routes.

reply to post by Julie Washington


Thank you for adding more pics.....I'm sure it is something 'normal' but it is such an odd event for us that it is kinda jawdropping.

Originally posted by pointr97
reply to post by Teye22

 

LOL...glad i'm not the only one dating myself, but i thought the same thing about Ghostbusters analogy

Are you the keymaster?

Yes!! I mean No, I mean ....I dont know!!!!

My eyes just turned red!!!



And why do I have claws!!!

Originally posted by Teye22

Originally posted by pointr97
reply to post by Teye22

 

LOL...glad i'm not the only one dating myself, but i thought the same thing about Ghostbusters analogy

Are you the keymaster?

Yes!! I mean No, I mean ....I dont know!!!!

My eyes just turned red!!!

And why do I have claws!!!

LOL.....When someone asks you if you are a God....You Say YES!

Wow, I've driven that road dozens of times, to/from southern Utah, through flagstaff to Phoenix, or to New Mexico.

This means traffic will have to take US 89A over Jacob Lake as an alternative route... and that pass is brutal in the winter. Heavy snow there today.

Here are the Google Earth coords for the stretch of road I believe this event occurred:

36°39'53.96"N, 111°37'59.53"W

This is about an hours drive north from the Painted Desert. Very surreal looking country.

Yeah, seems like erosion underneath the road that collapsed. I'm wondering if the area is prone to flash floods.

Originally posted by pointr97

Originally posted by Teye22

Originally posted by pointr97
reply to post by Teye22

 

LOL...glad i'm not the only one dating myself, but i thought the same thing about Ghostbusters analogy

Are you the keymaster?

Yes!! I mean No, I mean ....I dont know!!!!

My eyes just turned red!!!

And why do I have claws!!!

LOL.....When someone asks you if you are a God....You Say YES!

I WILL...I PROMISE!!! lol Back on topic though, I stand corrected from my first post here, the road didn't rise it dropped, but it is odd that there aren't more cracks though, that is what threw me off a bit. Its like a whole section dropped, but really slowly to avoid damage...idk

And if the cracks keep growing, they will like have to rebuild the whole thing from scratch wouldn't they? And the terrain doesn't look to welcoming for that kind of work althought they clearly have done it before...

Originally posted by Manhater
I think with him walking on it, he has more balls than me.

If it happened once, I can't believe he thinks it's stable enough to walk on. Insane.

edit on 20-2-2013 by Manhater because: (no reason given)

Great minds Surely he failed milk in kindergarden or is drunk or something. Or maybe it's his "Don't you ever call me a wuss again" card.


And wow, look at you now! Congratulations on the new makeover. You look awesome!

That area is about 20 miles south of Page AZ on Highway 89. Theres two routes for people that reside in the area below those cliffs that need to get to Page. One would take an extra 2 hrs the other about 3 hrs which goes around Utah. Not good for students and employees. But for people trying to get to southern utah through there bypassing Page they wont lose anytime taking an alternate route. People from Page going south to Flagstaff or Phoenix would detour an hour maybe. Its complicated I know how the times differ using the same roads. Its on the navajo reservation and navajos in the area know of gravel and dirt roads that can get them to Page in about an hour maybe less.

The cliffs you see in the pics and the cliff the road goes up is called Echo Cliffs. I think its called that because when tremors are felt the cliffs will make cracking sounds for few minutes. When that happens the epicenter is usually in southern Neveda or Southern Utah. And yes there are flash floods areas in the area and fatalities usually occur from it often killing unsuspecting tourist because they can happen on clear days with the storm 50 miles away because of all the narrow canyons.

In the picture it looks as if the support of the road just gave way in one spot of the road from tremors most likely. Its on a side of a mostly sandstone cliff so it must be a challenge for engineers to work with. You can google map the highway and you can see what it looks like going down that road.

Originally posted by pointr97
reply to post by Teye22

 

LOL...glad i'm not the only one dating myself, but i thought the same thing about Ghostbusters analogy

Are you the keymaster?

Geez, you act like your old, those were awsome movies back then.

On topic: its almost like there was a bubble or cavern why deep down that collapsed and all the ground above dropped with it. at first i was thinking a landslide but then noticed the surounding ground didnt shift to the side at all.

There was a minor earthquake about 4 days ago in Arizona (nearest town, Morenci, AZ). Not exceptionally close to Page, but certainly close enough geographically for it to be significant.

earthquake.usgs.gov...

It isn't unheard of for Arizona to have some earthquakes, and the many mountains and old, burned out cinder cones should attest to that fact. Arizona has had some shaking, definitely. The area in which this occurred has plenty of faults.

Please see: earthquake.usgs.gov...

A few volcanoes have gone off in the past few days (Hawaii and Mt. Etna). I drove through southern Arizona over the summer, and was amazed at the old residue of volcanic flow, which is now broken up into little plates all over the desert floor.

The earth appears to be restless, and the massive earthquakes that happened recently in the south Pacific may have put enough pressure on the upper part of the Ring of Fire to cause things to be stirred around.

There is no such thing as a seismically safe zone on this planet, it's all just a game of probability.

Cool pics, BTW. This slippage is tiny (although not to the bystanders)....there may be more to come.

GEOLOGICAL EVENT

What does that mean? Earthquake? Or.... Massive sinkhole as usual