
What Caused a California Road to Rise and Crumble? - curtis
http://gizmodo.com/what-the-hell-caused-this-california-road-to-suddenly-r-1744393718
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sandworm101
Isn't this called a "slump"? I think I learned that this is simply a landslide
without a feedback loop to accelerate the process. The centre of gravity for
each moving mass of rock doesn't move outside its footprint, so nothing ever
tips over and rather slowly squishes everything underneath.

I also remember that this process is what makes sand dunes sing. Wind builds
them steeper and steeper while gravity causes them to slowly squish down, the
billions of little slips resulting audible noise.

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blakecaldwell
Scientists are baffled!

Oh, never mind. They pointed to the obvious landslide.

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cperciva
The interesting aspects of this are (a) when you say "California", people
think "earthquakes", which were not a factor here; and (b) it's unusual for a
landslide to push material _up_.

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evilduck
It was at the bottom of the hill. One can imagine a more dense or solid layer
sitting on top of a looser layer of soil or sediment beneath it, plus the road
acts to hold it all in place like a suture. As the land slide from above
pushes downwards into the lower layer, the firmer layer above will move
upwards until it breaks.

It's unusual, but hardly something that boggles the mind or deserves the
headline provided.

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sandworm101
Or creating the road removed support or, more likely imho, made changes to
water movements that eventually undermined the structures uphill.

