California Quicksand

 

This image from Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows NASA’s UAVSAR airborne radar instrument captured data in fall 2024 showing the motion of landslides on the Palos Verdes Peninsula following record-breaking rainfall in Southern California in 2023 and another heavy-precipitation winter in 2024. Darker red indicates faster motion. Image: NASA Earth Observatory

Land in the residential area of Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County slid toward the ocean by as much as four inches per week during a four-week period in the fall of 2024.

According to airborne radar used to measure the slow-moving landslides in Palos Verdes, researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California found that the decades-old active landslide has expanded, reported the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a research and development lab federally funded by NASA and managed by the California Institute of Technology on Jan. 3.

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In early Sep. 2024, entire homes in Rancho Palos Verdes collapsed or were torn apart as the landslides rapidly accelerated after torrential rains drenched Southern California over the past two years.

According to a Feb. 5 article on yahoo.com, “The region, about 25 miles South of downtown Los Angeles, has been home to historic landslides, but weather events after the remnants of Hurricane Hilary in the summer of 2023 impacted the region and caused the movement to accelerate. The area was put under a state of emergency in 2024 after record rains then caused some ground to give way.”

“In effect, we’re seeing that the footprint of land experiencing significant impacts has expanded, and the speed is more than enough to put human life and infrastructure at risk,” Alexander Handwerger, the JPL landslide scientist who performed the analysis, said in a statement.