Landslide along Highland Way, Santa Cruz County, California

The Highland Way Landslide of January, 1997 in Santa Cruz County. The landslide took out a section of road and force the abandonment of a home. Additional landsliding occurred here in 1998. The road has since been repaired, but the fresh landslide escarpments are still visible (even after construction repairs have smoothed out the typically chaotic landscape of a slide area). The steep, forested landscape throughout this area displays abundant evidence of landslide activity-both active slides and other more ancient slides that are currently dormant. The slide area is along the southern flank of Loma Prieta Peak in the rift valley of the San Andreas Fault. The bedrock exposed in the slide area is marine shale and sandstone of early Tertiary age (Eocene Mount Madonna Sandstone; deposited between 34 to 56 million years ago).

The URL of this page is http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/landslide/big/16.htm