Images

The dock area, a tank farm, and railroad facilities at Whittier were severely damaged by surge-waves developed by underwater landslides in Passage Canal. The waves inundated the area of darkened ground, where the snow was soiled or removed by the waves.

Uplifted sea floor at Cape Cleare, Montague Island, Prince William Sound, in the area of greatest recorded tectonic uplift on land (33 feet). The very gently sloping flat rocky surface with the white coating which lies between the cliffs and the water is about a quarter of a mile wide. It is a wave-cut surface that was below sea level before the earthquake.

During the earthquake fundamental changes in the level of the earth's crust occurred in south-central Alaska and adjacent off­ shore areas. Uplifted dock on Hinchinbrook Island, Prince William Sound. Land in this area rose about 8 feet during the earthquake, and the dock can now be used only at extremely high tides. 

At many places along the mountain front bordering Turnagain Arm, earthquake­ triggered avalanches buried the Seward Highway and the main line of The Alaska Railroad. In this slide the railroad is on top of the embankment at the foot of the mountain; "the highway is at the foot of the embankment, at the edge of the mud flats.

The waterfront at Seward a few months after the earthquake, looking north. Note the "scalloped" shoreline left by the underwater landslides, the severed tracks in the railroad yard which dangle over the landslide scarp, and the windrow-like heaps of railroad cars and other debris thrown up by the tsunami waves.

This highway embankment fissured and spread (lurched). The road was built on thick deposits of alluvium and tidal estuary mud along Turnagain Arm near Portage, Alaska. Failure of railway and highway embankments by fissuring and spreading, and by subsidence of the embankments into underlying, earthquake-weakened, unconsolidated deposits.

The rails in this approach to a railroad bridge near the head of Turnagain Arm were torn from their ties and buckled laterally by channelward movement of the riverbanks during the earthquake. The bridge was also com­ pressed and developed a hump from vertical buckling.

The tsunami waves in Seward, Alaska washed the snow from the lower slopes of the hillsides, and the height of the highest wave is marked by the sharp "snow line" on the hillside behind and just above the rooftop in the left center of the photo.

The Hillside apartment building in Anchorage was severely damaged by the earthquake and has been razed. It was a split-level, five-story building with steel posts and lintels, concrete floor slabs, and unreinforced concrete block walls&nb

The 1964 earthquake precipitated some large rockslides in the Chugach Mountains. The debris from this one, which fell on Sherman Glacier, covered about 2 square miles. It originated on the highest mountain in the right background.

A series of earthquake-triggered landslides in glacial deposits disrupted almost a mile of The Alaska Railroad mainline at Potter Hill, near Anchorage. Avalanches and especially landslides produced major damage to transportation routes during the 1964 earthquake.

A close-up of one of the scarps bounding the graben of the "L" Street land­slide, showing a house which was undercut by subsidence of the graben. A subsidence trough (or graben) formed at the head of the "L" Street land­ slide in Anchorage during the 1964 earthquake. The slide block, which is the virtually unbroken ground moved to the left.

Scarp at the subsidence trough or graben of the Fourth Avenue landslide, downtown Anchorage. Before the earthquake, the sidewalk in front of the stores on the right, which are in the graben, was at the level of the street on the left, which was not involved in the subsidence.

A close-up of the compressional buckle, the ruptured fuel tank, and the revetment at the foot of the landslide near the Alaska Native Hospital, Anchorage. A rotational-slip landslide with a well-developed compressional buckle at its toe occurred near the Alaska Native Hospital, Anchorage.

The modern wave-cut bedrock surface surrounding Middleton Island (the flat surface between the base of the cliffs and the water) was submerged at a comparable stage of tide before the earthquake.

The Turnagain Heights landslide in Anchorage occurred along a steep bluff fronting Knik Arm of Cook Inlet. Its length, which was parallel to the bluff, was about one and half miles; its width was about a quarter to half a mile. This landslide reduced to rubble many of the finer homes of the city of Anchorage.

Close-up of damaged homes at Turnagain Heights landslide, Anchorage from 1964 earthquake.

Damage from seismic sea wave aka Tsunami in Seward, Alaska. The waves came in from the sea via Resurrection Bay in the background. A series of large tsunami waves were generated by sudden uplift of the sea floor beneath the continental shelf off south-central Alaska during the earthquake.

Close-up view of tsunami damage along the waterfront at Kodiak, Alaska.

This truck at Lowell Point, 2 miles from Seward, was bent around a tree by the surge-waves generated by the underwater landslides along the Seward waterfront. The truck was about 32 feet above water level at the time of the earthquake. Many landslides generated by the 1964 earthquake originated beneath, or came to rest within, large bodies of water.

An underwater landslide in Blackstone Bay produced a large wave which surged to points 80 feet above sea level. The trees in the photo are about 50  to 75 feet high.