The Montreal Gazette has a photo gallery of the site. One of the photos is this one:
Based upon this image this does not look like a sinkhole but instead to be a quick clay slide, probably in Leda Clay. Such slides are not uncommon in this area. I have covered a previous example in Norway on this blog. The famous Rissa quick clay landslide in Norway is available as a video here if you want an idea of the extreme end of this type of failure.Quick clay slides often occur on very low angled slopes, and can be triggered through ground disturbance which causes the clay to restructure, allowing it to flow.
At the moment I am unsure of the exact location of this event, but St Jude is at 45.77 N, 72.99 W.
Hat-tip to Peter Weisinger for highlighting this one.
Looking at the fifth photo in The Gazette images (elevated view over site with road running into background)and comparing with the roads via Google Earth, the site looks to be 3.83km to the north west of St Jude on a heading of 30.02 degrees at
ReplyDelete45°48'16.07"N
72°57'50.74"W
The Gazette's elevated view would appear to be looking back SE towards St Jude.
Yes, i'm also pretty shure it was a quick clay (or may be a rotationnal slide - but way too much retrogression.)
ReplyDeleteI had the chance to study this sector in 1995 when I did my thesis on landslides.
Carl
Thanks for keeping us updated about landslides. I tweet your blog quite often from @geosociety.
ReplyDeleteCBC just announced that the family were in their basement on the couch in front of the television and it is speculated they were watching the Montreal Canadien hockey playoff game (apparently they were fans). All four died.
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