COYOTE FLAT LANDSLIDE
At both ends of the mega-landslide, two small landslides were mapped by Bishop (2010), one near the northern toe (Figure 2), and the other near the southern toe (Figure 3).
Northerly views of hummocky and broken topography (Figure 4), and sag- ponds (Figure 5) can be seen along the southern side of the landslide along Big Pine Canyon Road.
Approximate Coyote Flat landslide boundaries proposed herein are (Figure 6):
1. Bishop Creek bounds the Coyote Warp landslide on its northwest- ern side.
Figure 2 - Toe area of small landslide at northern end of Coyote Flat landslide, just south of Bishop (Bishop, 2010). Slide moved from left to right. Photo © W. J. Elliott, 10-7-2018.
2. Big Pine Creek/North Fork Big Pine Creek bound the slide on the southern side.
3. The southwest side of the Coyote Flat landslide is bounded by a nearly linear line of northwest trending stream valleys and small lakes along the east side of the Sierra crest.
4. The northeastern side, the toe area, is buried by Owens Valley alluvium (Figure 7).
5. The basal slip surface just might be a series of buried, water- saturated, roof pendants, with a lower coefficient of friction than broken granitic rock.
Geomorphic Features Room to Move
Figure 3 - Broken and distorted granitic rocks in the toe area, along the southern flank of the Coyote Flatp landslide. Looking northwesterly from Big Pine Creek Road. © W. J. Elliott 9-29-2019.
The Coyote Warp landmass extends far out into the Owens Valley, away from the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Owens Valley graben is bounded by down-to-the-basin faults on both sides, leaving a large hole to fill with landslide debris, fluvial and lacustrine sediments.
Faults
A series of short, discontinuous, near- vertical, northwest trending, down- to-the-east faults have been mapped (Bateman, 1965, Pl. 4) from the western edge of Coyote Flat, well out into the middle and near the eastern edge of the Flat. At the eastern edge of the Flat, a down-to-the-west fault forms the eastern edge of the Coyote Flat graben (Figure 7).
Figure 4 - Hummocky and broken topography along the southern flank of the Coyote Flat landslide. Looking northwesterly from Big Pine Creek Road. © W. J. Elliott 9-29-2019.
4 TPG •
Jul.Aug.Sep 2021
From Coyote Flat, east to the Owens Valley, a series of short, discontinu- ous, near-vertical, north-south trending faults dip back west, characteristic of the distal end of the mass slumping back toward the center of the slide mass (Figure 7).
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