FULL ORIGINAUSGS VIDEO HERE:
   • Lake Overtopping Flood: Dambreach ex...  

I gave a talk at the PAGES 2017 meeting about this:
   • Outburst flood erosion and longterm ...  

Why do natural and manmade dams quickly collapse when the water level exceeds the height of the barrier, rather than just allowing the water to gradually overflow?

In this dambreach experiment, a 1m deep overtopping pond triggers a small flood by gradually eroding the compactedsand barrier. By USGS, Oregon (20120613).The lake behind the barrier is 23.7 m2 in area (not 10 as wrongly printed in the video).


Relevant papers:

Logan, M., and Iverson, R.M., 2007, revised 2013, Video documentation of experiments at the USGS debrisflow flume 1992–2006 (amended to include 2007–2013): U.S. Geological Survey OpenFile Report 2007–1315 v. 1.3., http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1315/.

Walder, J.S., Iverson, R.M., Godt, J.W., Logan, M., Solovitz, S.A., 2015. Controls on the breach geometry and flood hydrograph during overtopping of noncohesive earthen dams: DAMBREACH HYDRAULICS AND HYDROGRAPHS. Water Resour. Res. n/a–n/a. doi:10.1002/2014WR016620

GarciaCastellanos, D., J. O’Connor, 2018. Outburst floods provide erodability estimates consistent with longterm landscape evolution. Scientific Reports. 8:10573. Doi:10.1038/s4159801828981y [open access] https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159...


Video Ownership: USGS, published under FOIA:
https://www2.usgs.gov/foia/