Debris-flow and Flood Video Files, Chalk Cliffs, Colorado, USA, 2019

Chalk Cliffs, located 8 miles southwest of Buena Vista, Colorado, is a natural laboratory for research on runoff-initiated debris flows (Coe et al., 2010). In 2019, there were two monitoring stations operating at Chalk Cliffs. The Upper Station drains an area of 0.06 km2 and was used to monitor flow properties and triggering conditions in the headwaters of the study area. It was equipped with two rain gauges, a laser distance meter to measure flow stage, two geophones to record ground vibrations, a force plate to measure the basal impact forces of the flow, and two downward looking video cameras to record flow characteristics (Kean et al., 2020). The Firehose Station is located on the perimeter of the study area at the base of the cliffs and was used to monitor the impacts of cascading water runoff during rainstorms on loose sediment at the cliff base. It was equipped with a rain gage and video camera to record flow characteristics.
This data release includes videos of debris flows and floods captured in 2019 by the high-definition cameras at the Upper and Firehose stations in the Chalk Cliffs study area. The videos can be viewed in the individual ‘Child item’ pages accessible below. The ‘Child item’ pages contain either flood or debris flow video files for each camera described above. See figure “station_and_camera_locations.JPG” for the location of the cameras. The two cameras at the Upper Station are mounted in stereo approximately 92 cm apart and view the flow immediately upstream of a bridge cross section where flow stage, basal force, and one set of ground vibrations are measured. These observations aid in the interpretation of time series data at the cross section and help constrain flow velocity, sediment concentration, and particle grain size. The setup of the two cameras at the Upper Station can be seen in the attached image "Upper_station_setup.JPG". The camera at the Firehose Station is also used to constrain the sediment concentration of flows impacting sediment at the base of the cliff.
Camera video recording is triggered when the rainfall intensity exceeds a threshold (see Michel et al., 2019). Video files for the cameras were downloaded manually during site visits. More detailed information about the cameras and settings used can be found in the metadata file under “Process step”.
The following citations relate to reports that provide background information for this data release:
Coe, J.A., Kean, J.W., McCoy, S.W., Staley, D.M., and Wasklewicz, T.A. (2010), Chalk Creek Valley: Colorado’s natural debris-flow laboratory, in Morgan, L.A., and Quane, S.L., eds., Through the Generations: Geologic and Anthropogenic Field Excursions in the Rocky Mountains from Modern to Ancient: Geological Society of America Field Guide 18, p. 95-117, https://doi.org/10.1130/2010.0018(05)
Kean, J.W., Smith, J.B., and Coe, J.A. (2020), Debris-flow monitoring data, Chalk Cliffs, Colorado, USA, 2014: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9MUWDFN
Michel, A., Kean, J.W., Smith, J.B., Allstadt, K.E., and Coe, J.A. (2019). Taking the pulse of debris flows: Extracting debris-flow dynamics from good vibrations in southern California and central Colorado: Seventh International Conference on Debris-flow Hazards Mitigation, https://doi.org/10.25676/11124/173224

Tags: chalk-cliffs, colorado, debris-flow, flood, geologic-hazards-science-center, geomorphology, hydrology, landslide-hazards-program, landslides, usgs, usgs-618c362ad34ec04fc9c8638d, video-monitoring, videos
Organization: Department of the Interior