Arizona highway collapses.....

I showed my husband the pictures, as he has 38 years experience in road construction. He said that we have been in that area many times and there's been a "dip" in the road for years. Ie it was showing signs of instability at that point. He stated to me that it appeared to be a typical road collapse, and that could be anything from the bedrock or base it was built on, to the built up layers they use to build up the road to the asphalt surface.It may have been from seismic activity...we don't have all the answers yet. Many of the roads were built back in the 50s and 60s, and many haven't seen alot of attention since. I'm not saying that this is just true in Arizona, but in many states. He also stated that this isn't really that unusual for the type of area this road was built in. Mind you, this is just his opinion from all the years of his experience, working all over the western US.

Now, for my personal take on this....WOW...what a mess. That clean up will take some time, once they stabilize the area, and figure out just why it collapsed. I sure as heck wouldn't have been standing on the road...you got more guts than I do!

SK

Good input Karma, and taken as it is, professional insight from someone with more experience than I have.....This was just one of those 'Wow, that doesn't happen here'.....We are so used to roads being gully washed in high flood areas, or the sink holes of the bog states, but Arizona? Nothing happens here but Hot Thank you for the information, so he is saying that the section of road has been 'decaying' for awhile, and maybe it just crossed the event horizon and the whole thing gave way?

Coud be subsiding in the event that a D.U.M,B could be under construction...just a thought..

The New Madrid fault,runs into the Balcone fault that meets up with the grand canyon. There is another fault somewhere inbetween Balcone fault and Grand Canyon,grand canyon inches towards San Andreas fault Does the Rocky mountains which spans from lower colorado all the way up to and through canada have a fault in it, isnt rockies where the west and east faults meet, this is possible if you realise where the faults are. my question mark key is broken so is the last letter of the alphpabet key is also broke on my computer keyboard, sorry for errors

reply to post by stirling


yep, exactly as you posted on the first page.......thanks, now I don't have to say it......you're fast..!!

Vid of the down cliff view on this one: www.digtriad.com...

Almost looks like an area where prior mass wasting may have occurred based on the slope. Curious to see what the geologists say but pretty scary.

reply to post by pointr97


Seems to look like a fault line. Sinkholes do tend to be round or vaguely circular but this is definitely running along something linear that is beneath the surface.

Thanks for sharing.

Much Peace...

Here is another video that shows the area affected. The video is on Facebook. You can see the large "crack" at around the 5 second mark.

I'm not knowledgeable about "geological events" but that does look like it is a landslide in the making to my eyes.

I wonder what it looked like while it was happening. It obviously did not happen over time.

reply to post by pointr97


Oh damn!! You either slam on the brakes or put the pedal to the metal in this case. Look ma.....no road!!

reply to post by pointr97


Hello ATS Readers,

This was just a landslide.. the road there goes up the side of a cliff, makes a abrupt right at the top, and there is a big "cut" through the rock there after that bend..I used to call that cut you go through THE GATES OF HELL..lol

I have driven that road at least 50 times..lived in Page for 3 years.

Actually I am surprised this hasn't before! If you were to be able to see that road from the valley floor from the
turnoff from highway 89A to 89. You'd wonder why it hasn't happened before too..

Amazing pics, and nobody got hurt; only a much needed change of their undies..

Pravdaseeker

Yeah it left my sister in law stranded for a few hours, which was a good thing for me

reply to post by pointr97

Obviously we need investments in infrastructure but the current state of politics won't allow for it.

It's a simple hillside road bed slump. Maybe not so common in Arizona, but in hillside areas that receive more rainfall, it is quite common.

Originally posted by WhiteAlice
Vid of the down cliff view on this one: www.digtriad.com...

Almost looks like an area where prior mass wasting may have occurred based on the slope. Curious to see what the geologists say but pretty scary.

Curious, at nearly any point in the Video you can see the surrounding areas appear to be fill that would have been compacted, graded and then paved finally adding a guard rail. At seconds 35 in the video it starts showing the fill in the distance. and from then on at different time slots.
My opinion.... bad or insufficient compaction or underwater migration into this region of fill roadbed material. I think I'd be looking in that direction.

reply to post by Teye22

Haha, that's one of the first things that "popped" in my head! Followed by the chant when they climb out of the hole "Ghostbusters! Ghostbusters!" ahhh one of my all time fav movies.
As for the hole, three words come to mind...


I don't know too much about that area but it looks fairly natural...still an amazing sight, what a hole indeed!

Originally posted by stirling
There supposed to be a great deal of underground tunnelling out there, ya dont suppose the USAF boring machine got too close to a suface fault as it passed beneath the suface?
An aireal view from google may help but i dont know the exact location...anyone?
co ords?

the underground tunneling program in arizona was in full swing some years ago, but they stopped in about 2009,.
the bechtel trucks left the area, i think they changed the company name after that.

plus the constant hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm is now gone!

reply to post by SkipIntro


Watching that video, it absolutely looks like mass wasting aka a "landslide". In the first section, you can see that there are several slight fissures in the soil just below the first collapsed section of freshly turned dirt. You can see the scarp and the transverse ridges.geodynamo.files.wordpress.com... Large crack on the right hasn't fully slipped (sometimes these things creep). The irony is that the side of the hill looks like an old slump so they basically built the road on unstable ground a long, long, long time ago. That's the story for a lot of roads and highways, actually. Although I'm not a geologist, I do have about 30+ credit hours in geology (had to shift gears due to medical reasons--figures, eh?). My bet is really on mass wasting now.

reply to post by pointr97


Yes , that is exactly what he is saying. I guess we will know the for sure answers when the "experts" go check out the situation. But no, this isn't all that unusual to see happen. It just happens less often in places like AZ due to the lack of precipitation.

Peace and ty!
SK

looks like a good dirt bike ramp iv hit bigger drop offs in my truck