How to create the biggest mudslide you’ve ever seen

It ’s landslide season . Just in time for the clay rampages , a group of geophysicists have released a serial of video showing how to create the worst mudslides imaginable . The headstone ? Water pressure .

epitome by Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press

A team of researcher used an outdoor science lab called the USGS Debris - Flow Flume , which is a 95 - metre - long slide . Scientists send huge amounts of rock music , junk , and water fool away down the flume in parliamentary procedure to understand the physical science of , well , flowing junk . laser and other instruments mounted on the gulch mensurate everything from the flow ’s speed and mass , to how thick the center is as it flows .

The researchers had a simple question : Why do mudslides often step on it up and gain mass when they are zoom along over a soaked landscape ? It turns out that the solvent is related to why carshydroplaneon rainfall - slick roads . When mudslide rush over wet ground , the grain of dirt and backbone in the flow become very summary , make meg of flyspeck pockets of water under extremely high imperativeness . Like that hard automobile careening over a wet route , the mudslide is essentially skate over the top of the wet soil on a flimsy bed of highly - pressurized water . That ’s why the mudslide bring in speed over blotto ground , but slow up down over juiceless ground .

But unlike the hydroplaning car , the mudslide also bring in mass . The same power that make the mudslide zoom over the priming coat so chop-chop also allow it to “ purge ” its muddy layer , picking up the ground that it ’s skate over . So as the mudslide ’s pep pill increment , so too does its sizing . That helps to explain why mudslides that stream over a loaded versant may seem relatively modest when they start , but wander up make tremendous harm by the fourth dimension they accomplish level ground .

Here ’s a video claim a couple of twelvemonth ago when the researchers were doing the tests that led to the discovery chronicled in their Nature issue yesterday . I get laid the way the lead investigator ’s unveiling go entirely wry , and then once the mudslide start , you hear the whole geophysics group hack and cheer as the reeking mixture comes sliding down the flume , gathering speeding and mass . ( You ’ll see the mudslide repeatedly from several different camera angles . )

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