The Mw=7.2 earthquake on the Laguna Salada fault in Mexico on Sunday was certainly sufficiently large and shallow (10 km) to generate landslides, and there are areas of mountains that provide enough relief for slides to develop. To date the number of reports of slides is quite limited, but CNN has this amazing amateur footage of the mountains to the south of Mexicali. The huge dust clouds were almost certainly generated by landslides (see below the fold):
It will certainly be interesting to see what these slides look like on the ground, but given the arid environment shallow rockslides may well be a key component.
No comments:
Post a Comment