Turtle Mountain Monitoring Project & Field Laboratory

Aerial photo: The yellow, dashed line shows the most unstable area below South Peak on Turtle Mountain. Inset photo: The star shows the location of Turtle Mountain in Alberta.

(Photo reproduced with permission from Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, Air Photo Distribution. Image owned by the Government of Alberta and protected under the Copyright Act of Canada.)

Following the catastrophic rock avalanche that buried a portion of the Town of Frank in 1903, many people have tried to understand what caused the landslide to determine whether a second catastrophic rock avalanche will occur.

Dr. John Allan, founder of the Alberta Geological Survey, documented the hazard associated with a possible failure of 5 million m³ of rock in the area known as South Peak. Following that study, several investigations have tried to better understand the rate of movement of the peak, but their results were inconclusive.

Between 2003 and 2005, groups from government, private industry and academia undertook a large multidisciplinary project to monitor and characterize the movements at South Peak. Alberta Geological Survey describes this program in a geological report.

In 2005, Alberta Geological Survey allocated a dedicated program and budget to the long-term monitoring and continued characterization of the structure and instability at Turtle Mountain. We use a network of over 40 state-of-the-art sensors installed on the mountain as an early warning system for residents and infrastructure companies with interests in the identified hazard zone. The continuous data stream from this network provides valuable insights into the mechanics of the slowly moving rock mass and climatic effects on a variety of different sensor types. This sensor network, coupled with ongoing studies to characterize the structure of the mountain and movement patterns, provides the research community with valuable data.

The first priority of the monitoring system is to provide early warning to residents of the potential for a second catastrophic rock avalanche.

The secondary priority is to create a field laboratory for the research community to test and develop instruments and monitoring technologies to better understand the mechanics of slowly moving rock masses. AGS will make data available to the research community and work with researchers to test and develop new monitoring technologies on the mountain. This ongoing research will aid in understanding the movement of the entire South Peak mass, including the lower slope, to create a better model to predict future movement.