Large Rock Slide Closes I-40 at NC/TN Border

[MineralMan]

http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/10/26/article/rock_slide_closes_i_40_at_nc_tenn_state_line

If you're heading out on I-40, it's going to be closed at the NC/TN border for up to three months, following a massive rock slide. A detour is available, but will add time to your trip. More at link.

[SIMPLYB1980]

1. This happens all the time around there.

Even worse when it's on 321 and you have to go all the way around to get to Boone. Glad it looks like no one was hurt.

[MineralMan]

2. Closed for as much as three months?

That's a long time for an interstate to be shut down, I think.

[SIMPLYB1980]

3. Yeah It was closed that long when I was going to ASU.

"The 1997 slide closed I-40 from July 1 until two lanes reopened Sept. 10. Derrick Cole and his wife, Amy, opened Applecover Inn Motel in Maggie Valley just days before that slide."

I was taking Freshman orientation and some of my core classes early as part of the Watauga program. It's sucked because 321 didn't go all the way to Boone at the time and I had to take 40 to get home. You had to go on a bunch of back roads to get by on the detour. It added about an hour to my drive home.

[MineralMan]

4. Sounds like they fouled up on the design or routing of that

highway.

[SIMPLYB1980]

6. Not really the Appalachian Mountains are very old,

and prone to collapse.

http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/14/1/11

Giant rockslides and slumps are recognized over a large part of the east limb of the Sinking Creek anticline, a southern Appalachian fold. The slides are among the largest such features known in the Appalachians and are found within 15 km of the active Giles County, Virginia, seismic zone. The zone of rockslides, identified by anomalous topography and geologic structures, is about 25 km long and 1.0 km wide. Downslope transport, ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 km, of at least 100 million m3 of Silurian sandstones and shales can be identified. During sliding, bedding within individual blocks, as much as 5.0 km long, has undergone 30° to 90° rotation about a horizontal axis. The displaced masses have undergone extensive erosion and dissection and may be only remnants of previously more extensive slides. Secondary features associated with the rockslides include breakaway scarps, slope reversals, sag ponds, and slide breccias.

The recognition of these features, which might be mistaken for remnants of an Alleghanian thrust sheet, suggests that examination of similar settings throughout the southern and central Appalachian Valley and Ridge province might disclose additional examples of large ancient rockslides.

[Pithlet]

5. Wow, the detour takes you up almost to the VA border.

Yikes. I'm glad no one was hurt.