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Southeast Alaska: Massive Landslide Detected in Glacier Bay’s Fragile Mountains By STACY MORFORD - A 4,000-foot-high mountainside collapsed in Glacier Bay National Park this week in a massive landslide that spread debris for miles across the glacier below. It was a powerful reminder of the instability of the mountains in this part of Alaska and the risks that that instability creates. Just 10 miles away, the glacier ends in Johns Hopkins Inlet, a popular stop for cruise ships.

A pilot captured this image of the landslide in Glacier Bay National Park that Columbia University scientists had detected from seismic waves.
Photo: Paul Swanstrom/Mountain Flying Service Photo courtesy Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University

The sliding rock stopped a few miles short of the inlet this time. Last fall, when a similar-sized landslide landed directly in Alaska’s remote Taan Fiord, scientists discovered that it created a tsunami wave so large, the water swept 600 feet up the opposite side of the fiord, stripping away the trees.

“We have events like this maybe three to five times per year around the world, and Southeast Alaska is the global hotspot,” said geomorphologist Colin Stark, whose team at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory discovered both the Glacier Bay and Taan Fiord landslides in seismic recordings. Stark is headed to Glacier Bay this coming week, and he took a team to Taan Fiord this spring and is returning in August to study how the landscape and geology affected the landslide and tsunami there. What the scientists learn from recent landslides can help assess landslide risks facing Southeast Alaska and other areas in the future.

Large landslides often go unnoticed in remote areas, but they shake the earth enough to create seismic waves that have been catching the attention of Stark, seismologist Göran Ekström and their colleagues at Lamont.

Stark and Ekström’s preliminary analysis of the Glacier Bay landslide, which had a 5.2 magnitude, suggests the collapse started at 8:21 a.m. local time on June 28, 2016, when a rock face estimated to have been about half a square mile in size collapsed on a high, steep slope. The rocky debris appears to have accelerated for almost a minute over about a mile and a quarter, Stark said. Once it hit the ice of Lamplugh Glacier, the debris kept sliding, pushing up snow and ice as it moved. A pilot who later landed near the end of the landslide, about six miles from the collapse site, found that the thickness of the debris there was more than twice the height of a man.

Once the clouds clear and satellite images become available, the scientists will be able to calculate the volume of the Glacier Bay collapse. From their seismic analysis, Stark and Ekström estimate the landslide to have been about 120 million metric tons – the equivalent of some 60 million mid-size SUVs tumbling down a mountainside. - More...
Monday AM - July 04, 2016

Alaska: Alaska Tribes Win Trust Lands Appeal Before D.C. Circuit Court - Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected the State of Alaska’s attempt to block the U.S. Department of the Interior from taking land into trust and safeguard it for Alaska Tribes.

In Akiachak Native Community, et al. v. Department of Interior, et al., the court held 2-1 that the Department of Interior’s revision of its land into trust regulations rendered the case moot. Of the decision Native American Rights Fund (NARF) Staff Attorney in the Anchorage office Heather Kendall Miller said, “[Friday's] decision is an important victory for all Alaska Tribes. Nearly a year ago the State of Alaska decided to appeal this case and continue its fight to treat Alaska Tribes differently than Tribes in the rest of the country. We sincerely hope that fight ends today.”

History of the Case

Friday’s decision is a historic victory for Alaska Tribes ten years in the making according to the Native American Rights Fund. In 2006, four Tribes and one Native individual - the Akiachak Native Community, Chalkyitsik Village, Chilkoot Indian Association, Tuluksak Native Community (IRA), and Alice Kavairlook - brought suit challenging the Secretary of the Interior’s decision to leave in place a regulation that treated Alaska Natives differently from other Native peoples.

On behalf of their clients, the Native American Rights Fund and Alaska Legal Services Corporation sought judicial review of 25 C.F.R. § 151 as it pertained to federally recognized Tribes in Alaska. This federal regulation governs the procedures used by Indian Tribes and individuals when requesting the Secretary of the Interior to acquire title to land in trust on their behalf. The regulation barred the acquisition of land in trust in Alaska other than for the Metlakatla Indian Community or its members. - More...
Monday AM - July 04, 2016

Alaska: 50-Year-Old Mystery Solved: Seafloor Mapping Reveals Cause of 1964 Tsunami that Destroyed Alaskan Village - Minutes after the 1964 magnitude-9.2 Great Alaska Earthquake began shaking, a series of tsunami waves swept through the village of Chenega in Prince William Sound, destroying all but two of the buildings and killing 23 of the 75 inhabitants. Fifty years later, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey revealed the likely cause of the tsunami, a large set of underwater landslides. The scientists used detailed seafloor images not only clear up a decades-old mystery, but also underscore the tsunami hazard that submarine landslides can pose in fjords around the world where communities and ports are commonly located.

Main part of the Chenega village site at the head of Chenega Cove, Alaska. Piling in ground marks the former locations of homes that were swept away by waves. Schoolhouse on high ground was undamaged. Photograph taken 1964.
Courtesy USGS

USGS geologists mapping Alaska’s south coast shortly after the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake had speculated that a submarine landslide might have triggered the Chenega tsunami, just as known landslides triggered tsunamis that devastated the Alaskan towns of Valdez, Seward and Whittier. But “a bathymetric survey at the time, which only imaged relatively shallow seafloor, down to 180 meters (330 feet) deep, did not reveal evidence of a landslide in nearby Dangerous Passage or the other waterways around Chenega. Alternate explanations involving seafloor movement during the earthquake did not fit the timing and severity of the Chenega tsunami as described by eyewitnesses,” explained Daniel Brothers, USGS geophysicist and lead author of the study.

The tsunami origin remained uncertain until a team led by Brothers mapped a large submarine landslide complex in Dangerous Passage, mostly in water deeper than what was studied in 1964. - More...
Monday AM - July 04, 2016

Alaska: Jahna Lindemuth Alaska's Next Attorney General - Governor Bill Walker has named Jahna Lindemuth as Alaska’s next Attorney General. Born and raised in Anchorage, Lindemuth is said will bring extensive experience in complex commercial litigation, appeals to the Alaska Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and administrative management to her new role at Department of Law. She is currently a partner at Dorsey & Whitney, LLP, and serves as head of the firm’s Anchorage office.

Lindemuth will be the second woman ever to serve as Alaska’s Attorney General. Grace Schaible was the first woman to serve as Alaska’s Attorney General from 1987 to 1989 under the Cowper Administration.

Lindemuth replaces Attorney General Craig Richards, who said he is stepping down to focus on his family. Richards resignation was announced by the Governor on June 23, 2016. - More...
Monday AM - July 04, 2016