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Along for the slide
Geology's Neal Iverson to monitor rock movement on Canadian mountain.
- Mention Neal Iverson's name and most people will think of the geologist
who spends weeks underneath a glacier in Norway.
He has attracted national media coverage for those exploits, including a
feature article in the New York Times. A recent paper about glacier
flow derived from his time underneath the glacier was recently published
in Science magazine. That article examines how glaciers move across rock
and sediment and how they shape the landscape.
His research efforts were honored this past spring when the College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences (LAS) bestowed its Mid-Career Excellence in Research/Artistic
Creativity Award.
Iverson's latest work is a little closer to home and a little more out in
the open, but he says it's not that much different than the research he's
conducting in Norway at the Svartisen Ice Cap.
"I'm interested in landslides," he says. "In some ways they
are not much different than glaciers."
Iverson couldn't have picked a more famous landslide to research. One-hundred
years ago a fast moving landslide buried the coal mining town of Frank in
Alberta, Canada, in about 45 feet of debris. The landslide lasted just a
little more than 90 seconds and resulted in the deaths of 70 people.
"The Frank Slide is a very famous landslide, and it's thought by some
that there might be some potential for another landslide," said Iverson,
associate professor of geological and atmospheric sciences.
This latest research effort actually happened quite by accident. While leading
an Iowa State student field trip to the site, the group’s tour guide
mentioned that area residents wished someone would monitor the mountain’s
movements. Previous monitoring had been discontinued in about 1990.
Back at Iowa State, Iverson was funded by LAS for the project. That funding
will provide sensitive monitoring instruments that he is scheduled to install
on Turtle Mountain (the site of the Frank landslide located about 50 miles
north of Glacier National Park) sometime in September. In late June Iverson
and his colleagues studied the mountain and located the sites of monitoring
instruments left from previous Canadian studies of the area.
"We will monitor the rock creep to see if it's accelerating over time,
which would provide an indication of a potential landslide," Iverson
said. "Right now there isn't good evidence that it is accelerating,
but there is a rock wedge of about 5 million cubic meters that poses the
threat of another major landslide."
The instruments will record continuously the down-slope creep of the rock
mass. Rates of movement will be correlated with weather variables like rainfall
and snow melt, and used to test hypotheses for landslide prediction.
When Iverson initially planned to monitor Turtle Mountain, no other organization
or individual was involved. But at the recent 100th anniversary of the Frank
Slide, the premier of Alberta promised $1 million in government funding
to monitor the mountain. The University of Calgary and the Alberta Geological
Survey will lead that effort in cooperation with Crow's Nest Pass, a municipality
located near the slide site.
"We'll be the first group with instruments on the mountain," Iverson
said. "Soon afterwards, however, our instruments and research will
be integrated into the bigger Canadian effort."
Even with his interest in the Frank Slide, Iverson hasn't stopped his work
with glaciers. His stopover at Turtle Mountain in September will occur as
he makes his way to the Columbia Ice Field near Banff National Park in Canada.
His work on glaciers is supported by the National Science Foundation.
"Our new grant is focused on building mathematical models for how fast
glaciers erode rock and produce alpine valleys," Iverson said.
Around LAS
September 22 to October 5, 2003
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