Posts Tagged ‘Rock Slide’
Rock slide area(!)
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While walking along the Great Allegheny Passage or ‘GAP’ trail between the Pittsburgh area communities of Duquesne and Homestead, one encountered this rather worrying series of signs. The trail is set along a fairly level former rail road right of way, and is generally paved with asphalt or crushed limestone, but looming above it is a several hundred foot high slope which – in certain spots – can be described as a cliff.
Yikes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It didn’t take long to discover that those signboards weren’t a prank, and that the local stones had indeed been rolling down the steep hill in certain spots. This is – apparently – not an uncommon thing hereabouts. A few months back, nearby Pittsburgh’s Clairton section, a multiple ton boulder unexpectedly came rolling down a hill and came to rest right in the middle of one of the major highways which caused a regional traffic hullabaloo for about 24 hours.
I’ve witnessed the municipal curative and methodology as applied to this sort of slope destabilization before, here in Pittsburgh, which involves the installation of steel girders in a fence post formation and the subsequent stringing up of steel cabled netting between them which creates a catch all along the roadside. This is installed after the work crews set off a few small black powder detonations to shake loose anything which is ‘fixin to fall.’ It’s the Appalachian way, I’m told.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking up the sloping wall of the GAP trail, you can discern several large boulders, and the many smaller stones that are wedged into the soil around them. The geology in this part of the country predates the emergence of animals with lungs, I would mention, and is a fascinating story all in its own right.
Back tomorrow, with more, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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