Hazards August 7, 2023 Wildfires 101 Although the US wildfire season this year doesn’t seem quite as intense as prior ones, we thought this excellent primer on how NASA, NOAA, and new technologies are helping predict and monitor wildfires around the globe.
Flooding and erosive flows following a 2004 rainstorm caused this bridge collapse in El Paso County. East Sand Creek had been "channelized" upstream of this structure - possibly concentrating the flows and resulting in this damage. Photo credit: Colorado Geological Survey.|Bank erosion (cut bank caving) along the North Fork of the Gunnison River in Paonia Hazards, Water November 11, 2022 Case study: Fluvial Hazard Zone “The Fluvial Hazard Zone (FHZ) is defined as the area a stream has occupied in recent history, may occupy, or may physically influence as it stores and transports water, sediment, and debris.” The CGS often collaborates with local, state, and federal agencies on projects concerning emergency preparedness and community…
ON-001 Colorado Earthquake and Fault Map|Great Colorado ShakeOut contest illustration. General, Hazards September 23, 2022 The Great Colorado ShakeOut 2022 It’s coming up in less than four weeks! The Great Colorado ShakeOut is a public earthquake drill that takes place every year on the third Thursday of October across the state, the country, and the world. This year the official collective drill takes place Thursday, October 20th, 2022, at 10:20…
Earthquake damage: significant cracking and displacement in adobe wall of garage Geology, Hazards August 16, 2022 The Great ShakeOut The origins of The Great ShakeOut project lie, unsurprisingly, in Southern California, one of the more seismically active regions of the country. In 2008 a group of experts collaboratively modeled what might happen when a major earthquake hits the Southern California region. The detailed report, titled…
Pyrite Geology, Hazards, Publications, Water July 21, 2022 Case Study: NARD Are pristine mountain waters always clean and pure? Can streams unaffected by human activities and livestock influences be unfit for human consumption, or for aquatic life? The existence of natural acid rock drainage (NARD) suggests a “no” to the former, and a “yes” to the latter question. But…
Munroe Quarry near Livermore Geology, Hazards April 11, 2022 Case Study: Lykins Formation Small but significant areas of Colorado are underlain by bedrock that is composed of evaporative minerals. These are salts and sulfates that precipitate out of salt-concentrated surface waters. In the geologic past these minerals were deposited in shallow seas within closed or restricted basins where…
Helicorder trace from Trinidad seismometer station Geology, Hazards March 25, 2022 CGS Seismic Stations Early History The Colorado School of Mines first acquired and installed a single three-component seismograph in the Cecil H. Green Observatory at Bergen Park, about 9 mi (14 km) southwest of Golden. That system was in continuous high-gain operation into the 1980s and was, during that…
Check dams along drainage ditch Hazards, Water January 14, 2022 Case Study: stormwater Stormwater runoff is excess water associated with a rain or snow storm event that flows over the land surface and is measurable in a downstream river, stream, ditch, gutter, or pipe. From a regulatory perspective, stormwater is managed through some sort of engineered conveyance and is focused…
Tree trunk with up-stream face scoured by debris flow Hazards, Publications June 23, 2021 HAZ-2021-01 Post-wildfire Hazards Noting that we were getting hundreds of search hits on a previous version of an info-brochure that we originally published in 2010, we decided to issue a new, updated version: HAZ-2021-01 Post-wildfire Hazards: Mud Slides :: Debris Flows. The subject is unfortunately very relevant given the…
Avalanche snow with disturbed vegetation in runout zone. Photo credit: Colorado Geological Survey.|SP-39 The Snowy Torrents: Figure 12. Accident 81-21 Hazards, Publications February 9, 2021 The Snowy Torrents Here in Colorado, avalanche season is not over yet, and it’s been another deadly one with 26 fatalities so far in the US, six in the state. In that light, we thought we would re-release a publication that highlights at least one challenging aspect of Colorado snowfall — that is,…
While Glendon Rewerts begins the excavation that will host the site Hazards October 14, 2020 Seismometer installed on campus Mines students partner with the CGS to install seismometer on campus Colorado School of Mines geophysics students enrolled in Assistant Professor Ebru Bozdag’s Earthquake Seismology class have a literal ear to the ground for the next few weeks. With help from two CGS employees, Kyren…
Looking up the avalanche chute along Henson Creek in Hinsdale County Hazards July 14, 2020 Colorado Scientific Society lecture online TITLE: Historic Avalanches in Hinsdale County, Colorado: Impacts to Lake City, old mining dams, and new evidence for the association of snow-and-rock avalanches as a means of forming rock glaciers Jon Lovekin, one of our engineering geologists will make a Zoom presentation on the unprecedented geohazard that unfolded during the…