
‘Randomness and chaos’: The invisible, unpredictable forces behind fatal rockfall
Scientist Daniel Shugar says images of the aftermath of Thursday’s deadly rockslide in Banff National Park provide evidence of its cause — water flowing through the interior of the mountain.
“You can actually see some springs coming out of the cliff and actually coming out exactly from the scar itself,” said the University of Calgary professor of geomorphology.
He described how water from a lake above the cliff at Bow Glacier Falls had been seeping through rocks for decades before it eventually provided enough force to dislodge a boulder, triggering the rockfall.
“That lake has existed since 1955,” he said. “So over the last 70 years, the water from this lake (and the) glacier retreating has been trying to go downhill through the cracks. It essentially provided the pressure to dislodge the rock.”