CULLOWHEE – Fast-moving mountain landslides called “debris flows” topped the news in September 2004 when one such slide killed five people in Macon County’s Peeks Creek community, but it is another type of less-understood slope failure that is the focus of a long-term research project involving Western Carolina University geology students and faculty, and the state’s Geological Survey and Department of Transportation.

WCU students and faculty have been conducting preliminary research this spring at the site of a “big slow mover,” a slope moving downhill at less than one inch per year in the Hunters Crossing subdivision near Waynesville, said Cheryl Waters-Tormey, an assistant professor who is leading the WCU research team.

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Original article in the Asheville Citizen Times ...