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Massive, Violent Landslide Created Zion National Park, Study Says
weather.com ^ | Ada Carr

Posted on 05/27/2016 6:34:33 PM PDT by BenLurkin

Every year, millions of people travel to Utah to take in the beautiful and peaceful scenery in Zion National Park. According to a new study, however, the geographic stunner was formed by a massive prehistoric landslide that was far from tranquil.

The study, published Thursday in the Geological Society of America, said the park’s flat valley floor owes its creation to the collapse of a wall of Navajo Sandstone that was almost 900 miles high. Weak layers in the underlying Kayenta Formation sent debris shooting across the canyon at speeds that likely reached 90 miles per second. It's believed that the event took place around 4,800 years ago.

"The ancient Zion landslide would cover New York City's Central Park with 275 feet of debris," Jeff Moore, senior author of the study, told Phys.org. "And you would need 90 times the volume of concrete in Hoover Dam to recreate the mountainside that failed." The massive slide blocked Zion Canyon over a distance of about two miles, damming what is now the Virgin River and forming Sentinel Lake, which lasted for 700 years before dissipating, according to the study. Remaining clay beds and fossil mollusks preserved throughout the canyon provide evidence of a time when the lake occupied the area before it became filled with sediment.

The landslide was first documented in a scientific paper in 1945, but this new study gives more details about when it took place, as well as insight into its characteristics. According to the study, the researchers took samples from 12 boulders across the rock avalanche deposit to test using surface exposure dating. They found that boulders across the surface of the slide had deposited simultaneously, which indicates the slide was a single, massive event.

(Excerpt) Read more at weather.com ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: 2800bc; catastrophism; godsgravesglyphs; kayentaformation; landslide; navajosandstone; sandstone; sentinellake; therebellands; utah; virginriver; zion; zioncanyon
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1 posted on 05/27/2016 6:34:33 PM PDT by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

A wall 900 miles high?


2 posted on 05/27/2016 6:37:18 PM PDT by Farmer Dean (Never be more than two steps away from your weapon.)
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To: BenLurkin

Miles or meters or feet? Once again, the illiteracy of the media.


3 posted on 05/27/2016 6:37:22 PM PDT by Fred Hayek (The Democratic Party is now the operational arm of the CPUSA)
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To: Farmer Dean

Trump will do it if he has to!


4 posted on 05/27/2016 6:38:01 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

900 miles high is grossly incorrect.


5 posted on 05/27/2016 6:40:31 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: BenLurkin
Oh my, 900 miles?

The Earth's atmosphere is about 20 miles thick

6 posted on 05/27/2016 6:41:44 PM PDT by rdcbn ("If what has happened here is not treason, it is its first cousin." Zell Milleraere)
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To: Fred Hayek

Subsidence owing to a plague of mice no doubt.


7 posted on 05/27/2016 6:41:52 PM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: BenLurkin

Heat, gravity, acceleration, deceleration and all the forces above and under are as diverse in units of strength when a push comes to a shove ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqHbvRssyvY&index=19&list=PLP5FoSeDHoqiXcD5AX9uEXYDAd0jQ1o31


8 posted on 05/27/2016 6:43:51 PM PDT by soycd
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To: Farmer Dean
A wall 900 miles high?

Mexico paid for it!

9 posted on 05/27/2016 6:46:51 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Nation States seem to be ending. The follow-on should not be Globalism, but Localism.)
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To: Farmer Dean

900 miles? That is the same math that brings you global warming, err, climate change.


10 posted on 05/27/2016 6:47:00 PM PDT by T. P. Pole
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To: Farmer Dean
A speed of 90 miles a second? That is 324,000 an hour!! At that speed you could land on the Moon in 45 minutes instead of 3 days like the Apollo astronauts did.

I guess proof reading is a lost art.

11 posted on 05/27/2016 6:47:00 PM PDT by Lawgvr1955 ( Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: Farmer Dean

LOL! 900 miles isn’t just an orbital height, it’s a height orbit.


12 posted on 05/27/2016 6:50:00 PM PDT by Flick Lives (One should not attend even the end of the world without a good breakfast. -- Heinlein)
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To: BenLurkin

Zion National PArk

13 posted on 05/27/2016 6:50:00 PM PDT by Robert DeLong (u)
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To: Flick Lives

Hitting satellites like a flyswatter!


14 posted on 05/27/2016 6:50:52 PM PDT by Farmer Dean (Never be more than two steps away from your weapon.)
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To: Farmer Dean
"A wall 900 miles high?

and "debris shooting across the canyon at speeds that likely reached 90 miles per second"

That's debris reaching more than Mach 6.

15 posted on 05/27/2016 6:51:12 PM PDT by norwaypinesavage (The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones)
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To: Farmer Dean

Excuse my typo, Mach 360.


16 posted on 05/27/2016 6:52:53 PM PDT by norwaypinesavage (The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones)
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To: Lawgvr1955

I believe that thinking is a lost art for a lot of people.The person who wrote this story should look elsewhere for work.Janitor comes to mind.....


17 posted on 05/27/2016 6:53:14 PM PDT by Farmer Dean (Never be more than two steps away from your weapon.)
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To: norwaypinesavage

Mach 360,the debris might get a little hot at that speed.


18 posted on 05/27/2016 6:56:40 PM PDT by Farmer Dean (Never be more than two steps away from your weapon.)
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To: Farmer Dean
My first thought: you beat me to it.

They must mean feet.

19 posted on 05/27/2016 7:07:40 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (We're getting so educated, ignorance will be a novelty. I'll belong to the select few. - Will Rogers)
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To: BenLurkin

And the so-called Palestinians will blame it on the Jews (i.e. Zion National Park, a Zionist plot to take over America).


20 posted on 05/27/2016 7:10:41 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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