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Geologists commonly infer the flow conditions
and the physical properties of
debris flows from the sedimentologic,
stratigraphic, and morphologic
characteristics of their deposits.
However, such inferences commonly lack
corroboration by direct observation because the capricious nature of debris
flows makes systematic observation and measurement of natural events both
difficult and dangerous. Furthermore, in contrast to the numerous experimental
studies of water flow and related fluvial deposition, few real-time observations
and measurements of sediment deposition by large-scale mass flow of debris under
controlled conditions have been made. Recent experiments at the U.S. Geological
Survey debris-flow flume in the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon
(Iverson and others, 1992) are shedding new insight on sediment deposition by
debris flows and on the veracity of methods commonly used to reconstruct flow
character from deposit characteristics.
-- Major, 1994
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