Massive landslide in Glacier Bay National Park sends rock and ice over glacier

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Even by Alaska standards, this event was huge.

When a cliff collapsed in Glacier Bay National Park, it sent rock and ice coursing down a valley and over a lovely white glacier in what could be one of the largest landslide recorded in North America.

The rumbling was enough so that it showed up as an earthquake in Alaska and Canada.

Marten Geertsema, a research geomorphologist for the provincial Forest Service in British Columbia, says if someone had been standing in front of the slide, the air blast alone would have flattened that person.

The event happened in June, but the extent of the slide, estimated about 5-miles long, wasn’t known until last week when a pilot flew over the area in southeast Alaska and took photographs.