Are You in Danger? Learn From a Geologist About Landslide Risk. 

There are often very large areas at some risk and it may not be practical to avoid them. The key is to find the home or lot with the least amount of potential hazard.

This isn't just a video on geology. This is a master course in how to be an excellent teacher.

I never would've thought I'd be so interested in watching geology videos but there's just something so magnetic about an expert talking passionately about the field they love. It really draws you in. Thank you, Myron.

Myron my dude, your voice and way you calmy and clearly present your topics is fantastic. Many notes should be taken by other channels on how to communicate with their audience. Thank you!

GEOLOGY TIME!!!! YESSSS!!!

We need more Teachers like Mr. Cook. Thank you for all you do for us.

As an Architect/builder who specialized in Steep, so called un-buildable sites, I often had to inform a potential client that it would be inadvisable to build on their site and I declined building the project. Often they would find another builder. The Portland West Hills are prone to slide. Most are mud and debris flows that can cause significant damage but are not, so far, catastrophic. In the Columbia River Gorge, catastrophic, deadly slides have occurred and evidence of ancient slides abound, some are still moving. Several of the Portland sites I declined to build on have suffered from slides over the past 50-years, while none of the sites I built on have had issues. I also approach building on steep slopes differently than most other builders as I drove an array of steel pilings into bedrock rather than the typical post tied onto a poured concrete plinth/pad or shallow concrete piling. If no bedrock was available at a reasonable depth as indicated by a core sample. I didn't build. If overburden existed above the site, I didn't build. If other slide indicators, as described in your very informative video were present, I didn't build. I often see housing developments built right under potential slide areas and I just have to shake my head and question the lack of critical thinking so apparently missing. Profit before lives?

The Turtle Mountain landslide in southwestern Alberta is particularly impressive. A jumble of house size boulders extending kilometers from the mountainside that collapsed, extending through the town. They found an infant crying atop one of the boulders; amazing that anyone in the path survived.

I was looking at a model townhome in Sedona Az. Up against a magnificent, red, shear cliff. Walked out onto the back patio and looked up. I saw a boulder about the size of a 2 car garage nearly straight up. "Who in the world,..." I thought as I quickly left the death trap.

Hi Myron! My house was built on a hill in 1950 (fairly lax building codes at that time) so I have long been concerned about seismic liquifaction of the earth mound under my foundation. One thing I have going in my favor is a colony of Locust trees with theie spreading roots. I have encouraged the Locust tree roots to form a basket around my dirt mound and I hope that will help hold it all together in the (admitedly unlikely) event of a seismic episode strong enough to cause concern (since I live outside of Baltimore, not known to be particularly siesmically active). I appreciate this video because I take this very seriously. I must say, you did some great demonstrations to aid in visualizing the hydraulic pressures involved in driving landslides. Wow, the scale of those very large landslide complexes makes me feel very tiny in comparison.

Thank you for sharing your incredible knowledge!

I love your videos. You are to geology as Marty Stouffer is to wildlife, Bob Ross was to painting. Thank you for sharing with us 💗

Another great RU-vid geologist who explains geologic processes “the rest of us can understand!😊

Very nicely done. I'm recalling landslides both historically and recently in southcentral Alaska. Of course the Lituya Bay event was enormous, but there were so few people there it was not som harmful. The 1964 quake, magnitude 9.2 coerced many potential locations to slide, both above ground and below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. In November of 2022, a landslide in Haines killed a couple of folks as their homes were washed into the sea. Thanks for the great perspectives!

Another great lecture. Thank you very much professor.

I just love the time every few weeks we get to spend online watching your videos and learning. This was one of the few that wasn't hard for me, since here on Hawai'i Island it's very easy to see the scarping and slumps from old landslides. So when you were showing the views from your drone i was easily picking out the features of the slides.

I live near Oso, I remember vividly driving through the slide the day they cleared the road. The scary thing that few talk about is what's heavily suspected to have influenced the slide is how the hillside was logged back in the old days. Because of how they logged and terraformed the hill it created an unnatural funnel for rainwater down the slope, eroding and weakening the soil and causing it to be deeply unstable. And worse than that, their methods were apparently no uncommon throughout the whole PNW - which means there's certainly more to come in the future.

My father was a geologist. I wish I spent more time listening to him. He started working in in the 1930s in what is now Zambia (Northern Rhodesia then). He was looking for minerals but had to look out for lions and crocodiles and hippos. He had to hunt for meat. He became an excellent shot. Some incredible stories from that time. If anyone is interested, I could expand.

What a helpful video you have made and shared with us. We can now see the bigger picture and know where unscrupulous developers are pushing their luck with new housing.

Thanks for sharing such fascinating geology! I've taken a particular interest in landslides and have been mapping out landslide events that make headline news or posted via social media. By mapping out these events, its hard not to see that, more times than not, landslides happen along certain geological formations, which I still need to gather more notes to say for sure. I never tire keeping record and studying the geology of landslide regions ... there's always something new to learn. Your presentation gave me a greater understanding of the dynamic process of landslides! Another ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ geology lesson!

I remember driving through the landslide in Oso, WA right after it happened (after the hwy was reopened of course) it was devastating . I spoke with a couple Sauk-Suiattle natives and they said their grandmothers called it "The Walking Valley" and knew not to build in that specific area.

These landslides with their bulging hills & lake formation, might be the answer for the Green, un-conformity boundary layer that is found in New Mexico, & elsewhere right? Thanks Myron, our Geology Guru!

Just a fantastic video, Myron! Not only fascinating from a geology perspective, but also, almost any one, after having watched this video should be able to see the telltale clues of a landslide prone terrain.

The view at the 3:15 mark is quite striking. I see evidence on the right side of the stream of an older bajada, or linked series of alluvial fans, a depositional feature, that is now being actively eroded by the stream. In addition to down-cutting it appears that there is a significant landslide hazard on the “hummock-y” slope between the fans and the stream bank, and that the margin of the old alluvial fan is actually a scarp created by extensive areas of the old fan slumping into the drainage. Edit: Ooof. Myron zooms in with the drone on exactly that scene at the 27:00 minute mark. At the 33:00 minute mark at the Oso, WA slide, one of the common features of all 4 slides seems to be that they occurred at the OUTSIDES of meander bends where erosion is progressing the fastest and “over-steepening” the slopes above the outsides of the meander bends faster than other parts of the drainage. The Oso debris flow pushed the stream across the valley and now the OPPOSITE side of the river will be the outside of the meander bend, making that the more likely location for a future slide.

Thanks for another well done lesson in geology. I was living in Santa Barbara near La Cochita during the time of both slides. They were both heavy rain years. 1995 had two 500-year rain events, 10 Jan & 10 March. The 2005 rain came down more or less steadily over a week or 10 days. The soils were just clay muddy, very slide prone. Many slumps are visible along that stretch of Hwy 101. After the 1st slide a retaining wall of big steel I-Beam piles with timbers secured by the I-beam channels had been put in place along the warning signs about the slide dangers. People stayed anyway and even moved ther due to cheap property values. Leading up to the 2005 slide water pressure at the base of the slide was causing water to spray out between timbers. Many people left, but several stayed with the deadly consequences. Ironically, an avocado rancher at the top of the plateau was sued, accused of “overwatering”. The rancher lost - crazy Cali!🤦🏻

Myron, you keep knocking them out of the park! This was another fantastic video and I deeply appreciate you doing these. Once you learn how to spot things like scarps, moraines, clusters of lakes, and fossilized sand dunes you can never unsee them. You start to see and appreciate the history embedded in the landscape that has been staring you right in the face the whole time. It is magical and deepens a person's appreciation of time and space.

Your an amazing geologist and professor. Thank you for bringing this information to the world in a profound explanation tion. Your drone footage is outstanding, and very high quality. I don't think you would be able to produce a higher quality educational video. Nice work! Looking forward to the next one Myron.

Thank you for making the measurements easily understandable for Europeans.

I really Like Your style. Always so informative without sounding like you're talking down. It's like we're going on the learning adventure. This video in particular really got me thinking.

Another great lesson Mr Cook. Thank you again for taking the time to share your knowledge.

Thank you for sharing this!

I shake my head every time I hear people who live on the coast talk about sealevel changes. It has always changed...walk uphill or downhill, but do not expect today's coast to be tomorrow's coast.

Thanks Myron! Well presented!

Excellent info and presentation Myron! Thank you...

Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Thank you my friend, I will never see the landscape the same again. I found two easily recognizable slumps on the west side Green Mountain, west of Denver. You would see them at a glance, they are only 5-7 decades old. Great lesson Myron!

That's a real eye-opener. Thank you.

Fascinating as always! Thanks so much for this presentation, Mr. Cook. ❤❤

Thank you Myron, I appreciate all your lessons 👍🏻

Brilliant! Thank you for this beautiful example of geomorpology in practice. Cheers!

With the attention span of a gnat, I watch your videos from beginning to end. Listening to every word, picturing every drawing and explanation. The Morgan Freeman of geologist! I got hooked after coming across the scablands story.

Fantastic as usual! Thank you Mr Cook!

Thank you very much for your valuable lecture.

Thank you. Fascinating to watch, have never viewed land this way before.👍

Very, very interesting Myron. Thanks.

Such a pleasure watching your videos. Thank you.

Stunning views, great information, thank you.

25 Years ago I was a gullible east coast resident looking for a place to retire in the mountains of western Colorado for retirement purposes. I had picked out a location and was back in the east coast browsing over topo maps while waiting for the paperwork to finish. It appeared that there was a couple of square miles of mountain missing above the house I was looking at combined with a large area below the tentative home that appeared to have extra mountain material. Nearby real estate advertisements talked about a "seasonal pond" part-way up the mountain. I placed a quick telephone call to the real estate agent agent asking if there were any old geological reports about the area. I was "reassured" by the agent that it wasn't steep enough for a landslide, but he would look into it. Two days later I received a phone call from the agent , and his first words were "you were right". - it was a marked "landslide/slope failuredisappeared

I always enjoy these videos and learn a lot from them. Thank you for making these.

Excellent presentation again Myron .

Great video, thank you! Lots of great explanations

Its always a great day when Myron Cook gives us another fantastic video! I had to go to the bank today and they had a print on the wall and it was fun to try and work a geologists eye on it. I counted 20+ layers in a portion of it, I just wish I knew where the photo was taken so I could learn more about. When you talked about landslide scars I hope Im not too presumptious in my own understanding to say that you were cleverly standing right on top of some! I absolutely love the way you structure these lectures, I know Id be just as engaged in a classroom setting with such perfectly curated visual aides. Now I know why they always called them escarpments on Time Team, cause it was typically the result of erosion and/or landslides that made the steep surfaces theyd be rappeling and carefully digging in. As you got to the pip demonstration I was reminded of glimpses of some hard bedrock exposed in a couple of your shots and it immediately stood at as a red flag. Relatively thin soil with an immberable is a recipe for disaster OOH MY GOD THE MASSIVE SCARPE AT 37:05. It boggles the mind to imagine what seeing that wouldve been like. And then seeing the chain of stones indicating shoulders thatve been really weathered in the next one, mega yikes.

Oh. My. Gosh! Fascinating and informative- thank you!

Thank you Myron for this outstanding public service!

Love listening to you teach about geology.

I really enjoy your videos. Loved the views of the Grand Mesa in Colorado!

Very educational. Thank you sir!

Fun video Mr. Myron. I've seen these same features when I worked on the Black Hills National Forest.

Thank you for the very informative in depth detailed lesson. Learned more from this than the Geology class I took in college.

So glad you mentioned Grand Mesa. Had the opportunity to do some soil and lake sediment coring there while working on my undergrad and those slump and rotational blocks created the ideal conditions to get data that can help us reconstruct passed climatic conductions (up until the last glacial maximum). Such a beautiful place and great video!

Informative, instructional, thanks!

It's so wonderful to see your insightful work; we absolutely love your videos and information!! Thank you for sharing

I love this guy's talks!

I'm never getting tired of your videos. Your enthusiasm is very contagious.

Thank you highly for this one especially. Certainly shows the value of learning the structure and history of our environments.

Awesome! I am reminded of attending Sul Ross state in 79-80 and admiring the beautiful surroundings. Columnar joints to the west, lizard mountain and the beautiful nighttime Texas sky.

Terrific video!! Wonderful teaching

What a fantastic video. Thank you! It's remarkable to see landscapes in such a new light, with just a little bit of teaching. This really inspires me to learn so much more about what's going on all around me. I also want to be more thoughtful about my future homes' disaster risks, and while I will certainly hire a geologist to give me a proper assessment, it's wonderful to have some perspective of my own to help make more informed decisions!

If you're building a structure on any of these locations . . . probably just pitch a tent. Thanks Myron for another awesome video. I learned a lot. The way springs pop out of hillsides was a big one for me. Cheers

Dear Myron Outstanding as usual. You do a wonderful job of showing what is hidden. You presentation style is excellent. Thank You Thank You Fred

You have had an amazing variety of topics in the relatively few videos that you have uploaded--and they have all been quite fascinating. I remember reading about that landslide in Washington shortly after it had happened and how all the victims were left to be entombed there because of how massive the slide was. I have always wondered how giant terrestrial animals such as the dinosaurs got buried so quickly as to be fossilized. It has to be because of these landslides, right? Without landslides, perhaps there would be no dinosaur fossil record as we have now.

I remember dad telling me about the Hebgen Lake slide. As a kid he and his whole family used to fish and camp there. I have also heard that the north face of Mt Helena is an ancient landslide area. Your videos have encouraged me to make some road trips around the Wyoming/Montana/Dakotas area.

Very educational. Thank you for the excellent patient geology.

All of your videos are entertaining and informative. Thank you.

Love his presentstions because he gets out into the field & makes learning real world not just classroom.

WOW! I knew some of this. Now I know so much more. My dad in the mid 1960s vetoed several locations of land mom wanted for a weekend cabin site. He said no because of snow avalanche and/or landslide danger. He was an old school woodsman. We would drive through Oso long before people lived there. Dad was always nervous because he said it had an old history of slides. Then in college I was thinking of a geography major when a large slump type slide occurred along the Yakima River in Kittitas County WA. The professor spent a lecture about that slide, what slump slides are, and how they are very common in Eastern Washington. Now that I've been watching you and a couple of other geologists I see details in land better than three years ago. I had begun to recognize alluvial fans better. Yet this video has really furthered my vision greatly. At the beginning I missed some of the danger until you pointed them out. This video needs to be required training for city planner and developers when getting their licenses, especially in the western US. Thank you.

Living in Wisconsin, I don't usually hear much about landslides, but this video sure makes me think. It seems the only thing that separates a lot of these areas from sliding is time.

New Myron vid! So pumped!

Good to know! Thank You! Excellent footage and maps... just exceptional!

Awesome video, i learned a lot from it, thank you for posting !

Wow!! This is an eye opening video. I'll take a closer look at my home and property after watching this. Thanks for the education!!

Wow…excellent video. Thank you sir!

Excellent video for the average reader. It correlates with my field experiences in the Oregon and SE Alaska coastal forests. We stabilized a land slide in 1985 on the Oregon coast with horizontal drains. It finally slid in 1997 after a hard winter storm. People rebuilt houses at the toe of the debris flow. Good video.

This was interesting! Thank you for another good video on geology.

Your videos are always first class, and very informative, thank you

Great video! Entertaining, educational and essential!

Awesome information! You keep pointing out things that are obvious only after you have educated us. Thank you for all of your videos

A very informative video, thank you Myron.

That was excellent! I live in the Limousin area of France, just outside an old village, in a house that began to be built about 150 years ago, on a pile of rocks, but without the kind of foundation that would be normal today. I‘m satisfied that it will be here for another 150 years, but the house is surrounded by underground streams. Your video has helped me to understand more about the geology underneath my feet. Thank you so much for your very clear, and very timely, explanation!

Thanks for covering a topic I’ve been thinking about!

Excellent overview thanks

Thank you! The two debris flows you mentioned are perhaps just one, with a river cutting it into two.

Soil mechanics was the hardest course for me for my civil engineering degree, this really really helps visualize things like pore pressure and stuff like that

Great video. I'm reminded of Dr. Trexler and Dr. Washburn (of Juniata College), driving the GEO 101 and 102 students around central PA in the early 80's showing us places where landslides and sinkholes were likely to happen. One particular highway cutting wasn't just in slate but with the layers dipping towards the road. They had a lot to say about that decision.

Very interesting 🤔 Thanks for sharing

I just happened to watch this video a week ago. Then I witnessed the very thing Mr.Cook was discussing. The tropical storm Hilary hit California this past week and multiple landslides occurred. A sad thing for the people who live there. If only they had this knowledge before looking for a home to buy. Thank you for all your efforts and sharing your knowledge with us.

Thank you. I've seen so many of the features and never thought about it unless they were obvious. And thanks for showing mt old family cabin sight on South Fork of the Shoshone. Little did we know. Whew!

Somehow, you ended up on my feed. I must say, you teach very well. I understood everything and I could point out the potential spots. Now, Ill be able to see them.

Really interesting! Thanks Myron! Great explanations and visuals- you’ve made landslides easier for me to understand!! 🌟🌟

24:20 these graphics really helped me better visualize/understand what you were demonstrating. i thank you very much for this. for me, it did wonders to clarify your message.