A small parking lot is adjacent to the fenced area. No
legal access is available to go out on the slide area. You
will view the slide from the parking area through the
fence.
The bedrock of this area is the layered sedimentary rock of the
Monterey Formation. The layers in the rock gently slope toward the
sea. Some of these layers are a soft clayey material called
bentonite. Bentonite swells and weakens when it gets wet.
Initial movement of this slide in 1929 appears to have been
translational. Evidence for this comes from two wells (a water and
oil well) that were sheared off near sea level. In a translational
slide, material above a relatively flat plane of weakness slides
downhill. Picture a pile of tilted books. At some point the books
will begin to slide off each other. In this case, the plane of
weakness was likely a bentonite layer that was saturated by the
ocean.
Later, as the ocean eroded the base of the cliff, undercutting
the foundation of the cliff, the plane of the slide curved up to
the surface. The character of the slide became rotational. Now the
head of the slide (the area furthest uphill) began to sink down
faster than toe (the downhill section) changing the angle the beds
dip. (see
Cal State Long Beach Virtual Field Trip for a graphic.)
Sections of the slide continue to move especially after heavy
rains.
Logging requirements:
Send me a note with :
- The text "GC1576T The Sunken City" on the first line
- The number of people in your group.
- the evidence you see that the slide is now rotational
- why would the slide continue to move after rains
The above information was compiled from the
following sources:
- Foster, John, The Point Fermin Landslide in A
Day on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Arthur Brown and John Cooper
Editors, Pacific Section SEPM, October 7, 2006
- POINT FERMIN, CSULB Geology's
http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/VIRTUAL_FIELD/Palos_Verdes/fermin.htm