Historic Mudslide that Buried Washington May Occur Again

Scientists are getting a better handle on the history of landslides as they take a look at the Oso site in Washington. Scientists have examined the major mudslide that buried much of the region in March 2014 in order to better understand the area's past history, and possibly its future.

The landslide that occurred in 2014 was the deadliest landslide in U.S. history. That's why researchers examined the area to see if other mudslides had occurred in the past.

"The soil in this area is all glacial material, so one hypothesis is the material could have fallen apart in a series of large landslides soon after the ice retreated, thousands of years ago," said Sea LaHusen, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We found that that's not the case-in fact, landslides have been continuing in recent history."

The scientists used a new method to date all previous landslides at a particular location. The method shows that the slopes in the area around Oso have collapsed on average once every 500 years, and at a higher rate of about once every 140 years over the past 2,000 years.

"This was well known as an area of hillslope instability, but the question was: 'Were the larger slides thousands of years old, or hundreds of years old?' Now we can say that many of them are hundreds of years old," said Alison Duvall, one of the researchers.

The findings reveal a bit more about the history of the area, and show a new method that could be used to assess other locations.

The findings are published in the journal Geology.

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