Mud Creek Topo Change June 13-October 12 2017 View 3

In 2017, the massive Mud Creek landslide buried a quarter-mile of the famous coastal route, California’s Highway 1, with rocks and dirt more than 65 feet deep. USGS monitors erosion along the landslide-prone cliffs of Big Sur, collecting aerial photos frequently throughout the year. Some photos are taken with a camera mounted on an airplane, others come from unmanned aerial systems, or UAS: sometimes called "drones." By analyzing overlapping photos, they made precise maps of the slopes and calculated volumes of material lost or gained over time. The last slide shows the differences between the June 13 and October 12 photos, calculating the volume of land lost or gained.