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The Khyex River landslide of November 28, 2003, Prince Rupert British Columbia Canada

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Abstract

On November 28, 2003, at about 00:30 PST, 35 km east of Prince Rupert in northwestern British Columbia, an extremely rapid, retrogressive liquefaction earth flow, or a clay flow-slide, severed the natural gas pipeline. As a result, Prince Rupert residents were without natural gas heat for 10 days. The landslide has a steep main scarp that is 45 m high by 345 m wide. It consists of glaciomarine sediments mantled by rubbly colluvium lying on, and against smooth bedrock of the valley wall. It covers an area of 32 ha, and displaced about 4.7 M m3 of material. This displaced material flowed up and down river over a distance of 1.7 km, blocked the river, and caused flooding upstream for a distance of 10 km. This landslide is the most recent of four large landslides that have occurred over the last four decades in glaciomarine sediments in northwestern British Columbia.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Drs. O. Hungr and B. Pelletier for the helpful suggestions, which improved the manuscript; Dr. A. Dyke for help in identifying the molluscs; M. Wygergangs and J. Brennan for sample preparation; Dr. D. Mosher, O. Brown and K. McKillop for sediment analyses; and R. Franklin for drafting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Geomorphologist, B.C. Ministry of Forests, P.O. Bag 6000, VOJ 2NO, Smithers , BC Canada

    James W. Schwab

  2. Research Geomorphologist, B.C. Ministry of Forests, 1011 4th Ave. Prince George, V2L 3H9, BC Canada

    Marten Geertsema

  3. Research Scientist, Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth Street, K1A 0E8, Ottawa , ON Canada

    Andrée Blais-Stevens

Authors
  1. James W. Schwab
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  2. Marten Geertsema
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  3. Andrée Blais-Stevens
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Correspondence to James W. Schwab.

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Schwab, J.W., Geertsema, M. & Blais-Stevens, A. The Khyex River landslide of November 28, 2003, Prince Rupert British Columbia Canada. Landslides 1, 243–246 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-004-0026-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-004-0026-0

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