Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

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

Metadata Updated: October 29, 2025

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

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 29, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 29, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-618c362ad34ec04fc9c8638d
Data Last Modified 2022-06-22T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 68be8575-9c96-4c0f-91db-9a3bea6d8985
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -106.191530, 38.729782, -106.181788, 38.737240
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash ccd1f20089ec12c05eb120f5c2f64520b4f0e6707bd94bb329b3d8b73ab312b9
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -106.191530, 38.729782, -106.191530, 38.737240, -106.181788, 38.737240, -106.181788, 38.729782, -106.191530, 38.729782}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.