Terrestrial Scanning / Topography & Monitoring

Young River Landslide – New Zealand 10.10.2007

A landslide blocking the North Branch of the Young River near Haunted Spur occurred at 4:40 am on 29 August 2007. The landslide occurred in shattered and sheared schist rock adjacent to the Moonlight Fault Zone. The landslide formed a dam 100 m high blocking the valley. Immediately after the landslide occurred water began impounding behind the dam. It has taken more than five weeks for the lake to fill completely and at the time of this report now needs only a further rise of less than one metre to overtop the dam. After heavy recent rainfall the lake is now close to overtopping. Using a tripod-mounted Riegl LMS Z420i, geologist Chris Massey and surveyor Neville Palmer, both of GNS Science, have measured the volume of the landslide at 11 million cubic meters.