Geology in action

  Many faculty and students found themselves curious of formations on the slope below Walter Hall, the newest building on campus. The faculty members of the geology department provided some insight into these developments, which are technically called a slump and scarp.

"The slump is basically the body of soil that move[s] downhill [and] the scarp is the exposed face at the top of the slump," said Assistant Professor of Geology David Rodland. "Water can percolate through soil and sediment…when it hits an impermeable layer, the water will accumulate at that level. We get plenty of rainfall and snow. As a result, the soil can be easily saturated. You have to look out for a lot of areas around here where there is a steep slope and the soil isn't as cohesive as it might be elsewhere.We [also] often have alternating layers of permeable and impermeable rock."

  He explained that these layers date back to the Carboniferous Period about 300 million years ago during the Ice Ages. 

"When the sea level rose and fell as the glaciers expanded and contracted, so we alternate between terrestrial and marine sediments, flood plains with mud and coal beds, sandstone and beach deposits, and limestone with fossils of shellfish," said Rodland.

There are even some samples of coal and fossils in the new formations, which appeared sometime around March 22 of this year.

 Associate Professor of Geology Eric Law remembers when he first noticed the changes.

  "I pass [the hill] every day and I saw them within a day," said Law. "[Scarps and slumps] can happen in minutes; you would be lucky if you saw it happen. Scarps are the most common type of landslide here. [But] it's very shallow. It should not endanger the building."

 Head of the Geology Department Stephen Van Horn also expressed agreement.

  "There are dozens of examples in the area," said Van Horn. "We were just in the hollow today and there is a smaller slump. You can kind of get a sense of how much [the soil] has moved down the hill by [examining] the height of the scarp and the height of the toe (the bottom of the slump, as opposed to its head). The material that forms in the toe area acts to help the rest of it from moving as much. Water plays a big role in the formation of these. They usually appear after a significant amount of rain over a longer period."

  The origins of the slump appear to come from the water of a drainpipe.

  "It was a rainy week in March, and the slump started immediately below a drainpipe that channels water from the soil around Walter Hall, so we think the slump was caused by the soil beneath the pipe becoming oversaturated,"  said Rodland.

  However, this should not necessarily cause alarm.

  "I am not an engineering geologist, and slope movements are not my area of expertise," said Rodland. "If you want an opinion about the long-term stability of Walter Hall, I'm not the one to ask. All I can offer are my personal observations and experience."