And, Estill Fork Is Changing

The picture shows a sizable landslide just downstream from our sampling site at Estill Fork. The bank there is pretty steep and rises to the road, which is heavily engineered to fit on the side of a mountain. A large gouge of soil, gravel fill and small boulders slumped from under the road way and carved a shallow gully into the hillside ending at the stream. It has the interesting effect of extending our riffle study area because it juts out fairly fair into the stream, creating a narrows with faster water downstream for about 40 meters before ending at a deep pool. There is evidence that the water may have been as much 3 meters higher last week after the heavy rains, which of course weakened the structure of the roadbed and the hillside below. Next time we drive in on the other road!