Landslide Photo Collections

Searchable USGS Photo and Multimedia Archive with Ordering Information

These are an assortment of photos illustrating a number of different geographical locations and types of landslides. Please contact Lynn Highland, highland@usgs.gov, for more information

  • Landslide Overview Map of the Conterminous United States-reproduced from U.S. Geological Survey Open-file Report 97-289 (online: http://landslides.usgs.gov/learning/nationalmap/index.php). Different colors denote areas of varying landslide occurrence and susceptibility.
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  • La Conchita, California, 1995 landslide - a ground-level view, looking down a road, towards the toe of the slide. Photograph by R.L. Schuster, U.S. Geological Survey.
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  • Photo shows depth of material that flowed down a hillside channel onto Interstate-70, near Glenwood Springs, Coloraod in September, 1994. Photograph by Sharon Diehl, U.S. Geological Survey.
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  • Cleaning up debris-flow material from the 1994 debris flow on an off-ramp on Interstate-70 near Glenwood Springs, Colorado. (This September, 1994 event described in previous slide caption). Photograph by Lynn Highland, U.S. Geological Survey. See photos 15 and 17 for more photos of this event.
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  • Melting snow and ice on the north flank of Washington's Mount St. Helens, triggered this lahar (an Indonesian term for a
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  • Landslide in marine sediments over basalt, extending across Washington State Highway 4, into the Columbia River, west of Stella, Washington. Photograph by R.L. Schuster, U.S. Geological Survey.
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  • La Conchita, California, 1995 landslide damage to a house. (Photograph by R.L. Schuster, U.S. Geological Survey).
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  • La Conchita, California-damage to a house - Photograph by R.L. Schuster, U.S. Geological Survey.
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  • A landslide near McClure Pass, Colorado, in 1994-This area of the Rocky Mountains has chronic problems where roads cross landslide areas. The State has found that the best solution in this case, is to repair the road as it becomes damaged. This car plunged into the landslide in the middle of the night, after the landslide occurred. Fortunately, no one was injured. Photograph by Terry Taylor, Colorado State Patrol.
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  • Roadcut failure near Golden, Colorado-This small landslide on Colorado State Highway 93, a well-traveled road from Golden to Boulder, Colorado began sliding in 1993 and cost federal, state and local governments $4 million to evaluate and remedy. Remedial measures included giant tiebacks holding the slide material into the Precambrian bedrock, together with the construction of an elaborate drainage system within the slide. Photograph by William M. Brown, III, U.S. Geological Survey.
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  • Sinkhole at Winter Park Florida. Sinkholes, although not classified as landslides, are another form of ground subsidence that can happen catastrophically. This sinkhole occurred in 1981, in the time span of one day. The city of Winter Park stabilized and sealed the sinkhole, converting it into an urban lake. This form of subsidence occurs when carbonate layers that lie below the surface dissolve. When the weight of the overlying ground becomes too great, or the dissolved area too large, the surface collapses into the void. These features occur in what is known as karst topography which is common in Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee and also occurs in many other places around the world. Photograph by A. S. Navoy
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  • The Madison Canyon landslide near Yellowstone Park. This landslide occurred after the Hebgen lake earthquake (Richter Scale Magnitude = 7.5) in Montana, in 1959. The earthquake caused a great slide of rock, soil, and trees to fall from the steep south wall of the Madison River Canyon. Twenty-eight people camping in the area were killed as they were overtaken by this 21 million cubic meter mass. The landslide formed a barrier that completely blocked the gorge and the flow of the Madison River, and created a lake.
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  • Photo shows the effects of landslides and debris flows during the winter storms of February 1996 in the northwestern United States. Areas of highest rainfall intensities were centered along the Oregon-Washington border. Estimates of damage from the floods and landslides exceeded $800 million in Washington and Oregon alone. This slide shows a failed residential development on a hisllside at Chehalis, Washington. Much of the failure occurred in years immediately before 1996 (Photograph by R.L. Schuster, U.S. Geological Survey).
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  • La Conchita, California-a small seaside community along Highway 101 south of Santa Barbara. This landslide and debris flow occurred in the spring of 1995. Many people were evacuated because of the slide and the houses nearest the slide were completely destroyed. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured. (There was another landslide in 2005, in the same area, in which 10 people were killed). Photograph by R.L. Schuster, U.S. Geological Survey.
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  • Slide 8: Earthflow in Cincinnati, Ohio-This slide shows material being removed by highway crew along the Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio. Hamilton County, in the metropolitan Cincinnati area, experienced an average annual economic loss of $5.80 per person (1975 dollars) between 1973 and 1978, the highest calculated per capita loss of any municipality in the United States. Photo by Bob Fleming, USGS.
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  • Fire-related debris flows from Storm King Mountain, near Glenwood Springs, Colorado. See also, photos 16 and 17 for more photos of the deris flows that blocked Interstate-70 during Labor Day weekend, 1994. A very hot and fast-moving wildfire in July of that year on the slopes of Storm King Mountain denuded the slopes of vegetation. An intense rainstorm generated debris flows from material on the burned hillslopes and in the channels between hills. Interstate traffic was disrupted for a day and caused serious delays for emergency vehicles and hospital access, due to the fact that Interstate-70 is the only access route through this part of the Rockies. The Interstate-70 corridor through the Rocky Mountains experiences numerous problems from landslides, debris flows, and rockfalls. Photograph by Jim Scheidt, Bureau of Land Management.
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  • Slide 2: Slide Mountain, Nevada-Boulders partially bury a house from a debris flow triggered by rapid snowmelt in late May 1983. The rapidly moving debris flow emerged from a canyon and killed one person, injured several others, destroyed or severely damaged five homes, and buried a highway. A map delineating geological hazards in this area prepared a decade earlier by the USGS in cooperation with the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology identified the hazard zone that was partially inundated by this debris flow. Photograph by U.S. Geological Survey.
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  • The Mamayes, Puerto Rico, landslide, 1985. This landslide destroyed 120 houses and killed at least 129 people, the greatest number of casualties from any single landslide in North America. The catastrophic block slide was triggered by a tropical storm that produced extremely heavy rainfall. Contributing factors could also have included sewage directly discharged into the ground in the densely populated area, and a leaking water pipe at the top of the landslide. Photograph by R.W. Jibson, U.S. Geological Survey.
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  • Landslide occurring on the road to the Zion Park Lodge, Zion National Park, Utah, in the spring of 1995. One hundred people were stranded in the Lodge for two days since this was the only route into and out of the Lodge area. The landslide also damaged the sewer line adjacent to the road. Photograph by R.L. Schuster, U.S. Geological Survey.
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  • A house damaged by a mudflow (lahar) along the Toutle River about 25 miles west-northwest of Mount St. Helens, in Washington. This lahar resulted from the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Mudflow height is recorded by mud coatings on tree trunks. Photograph by D. R. Crandell, U.S. Geological Survey.
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