Massive Cliff Collapse on to San Diego Beach

Video ID: CPM0280
A stunning video captured the moment a massive chunk of cliff collapsed, cutting the beach below in half.
Kent Ameneyro was on Blacks Beach near La Jolla, USA, on Friday January 20 when he spotted rocks rolling down from the clifftop.
Over the course of six minutes, dramatic footage shows huge heaps of the rock break away before sliding down on to the sand below.
To license this video clip for editorial or commercial use, contact [e-mail].

[@zinniebee]

Incredible footage. Don’t think I’d be brave enough to walk up to the base like that so soon after that display!

[@billrobbins5874]

Brave or not thinking? 😳

[@katerinaliakou]

You mean stupid, you're not stupid lol

[@tigergreg8]

You'd have plenty of time to just run back.

[@jpaul8589]

This is a MUCH BETTER version than the dingleberry who couldn’t turn their phone sideways and film wide to catch this one-time event!

[@riparianlife97701]

Friends don't let friends record vertical video.

[@bryanchipps9374]

😂 😂 😂 💀

[@barbaradeselle4287]

Maybe the other person couldn’t hold their device sideways but the person taking this video swipes back and forth so much; gave me a headache.

[@greggbisgrove7499]

It’s called landscape for a reason.

[@lordfrostdraken]

I literally just came from there XD

[@markgreene7930]

Stunning how the hillside pushed up the sand from below. Wow!

[@garyp.7501]

That uplift is from the pacific plate pushing East.

[@primrosereceptionist611]

@@garyp.7501 That's not why the dark sand was pushed up and away from the landslide. The falling landslide materials were heavy and pushed down and away from the cliff acting like a bulldozer.

[@JJJVE123]

​@@primrosereceptionist611I felt it was the dark ground moving below the hill and coming out that was shaking the hill and bringing it down..

[@dethmaul]

The pacific plate doesn't even move east lol. The north american plate moves west.

[@allenra530]

The layer of dark sand that pushed out at the bottom of the slide was what started the whole movement. All of the California coast is sea bottom sediments that have been pushed up by earthquake movements. When heavy rains come, like they have done this year, those layers get saturated and begin to come apart. This happened on a much larger scale on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the Los Angeles area. It was an upscale neighborhood that started out using septic tanks and drainfields instead of building sewers to carry the sewage away. On top of that, all of the estate homes had irrigated landscaping. All of the extra water caused an ancient landslide to reactivate and a couple of square miles of land started to move down into the surf. They spent billions of dollars to install drains and put in a sewer system in order to save the fancy homes. It still moves if they get enough rain, but not very fast or far. Eventually the ocean will take it all back from the land and the people will have to leave or drown.

[@observantmonkey4055]

humans never fail to amaze me with how careless we can be in very common sense situations like having a home on a cliff. the science and tech is good but mother nature is better and she does what she wants

[@calscottoh]

They didn't leave and now look what happened.

[@TheRuffusMD]

great explanation is there any chance that the earth was inching forward like a glacier

[@ReeceTarpley]

This was a rotaional landslide. You can see the back rotaing down, and as it is rotating, it is pushing the "black sand" out the bottom towards the front.@@TheRuffusMD

[@Syntex366]

@@observantmonkey4055 Yeah honestly if you build a cliff house and expect it to win against the FUCKING SEA, you deserve what happens to that property. Like what did you think???

[@daveswinington896]

WOW, WOW, WOW!! How many times I've walked by that beach and never saw a collapse like that… So glad to have got it on film here… Thanks for sharing…

[@garyp.7501]

What is really amazing is the uplift of the ground at minute 3

[@22vx]

Thank you for NOT making this a dum dum vertical video👍 I love you and you don't suck!

[@davide.b8027]

It's beautiful when you see how small we are compared to the wonders of Mother Nature

[@stevewilliams8590]

I want to trust someone as much as this man trusted the spot he was standing in.

[@TheOverlyHackeled]

All the canyon trails that lead through cliffs to the sea are gone now. We use to take them down to the beach in the ‘69’’. “Too every season turn turn”

[@desertwind306]

Beautifully said...

[@Alan-zi4or]

Amazing footage - you absolutely did the right thing by stopping recording - and going somewhere safe / that cliff was totally unstable

[@JunkMunkey]

Is anyone else noticing about the 3:20 mark the black area at the base rising from ocean level to a considerable height. This cliff collapse is not due to the rain there's probably a plate shift that caused that ground to swell. I think something larger is about to happen

[@lisawallace1741]

I rewatched this part of the video about six times... I'm super curious about hydrologically and geologically what's happening.

[@Add1cted]

wdym plate shift? at that point the cliff began moving as a whole thus sliding down and rotating slightly which pushed the mud from the beach upwards. This video shows 2 mechanics of collaps: until 3:18 you see toppling of rocks/pillars and falling out of the wall, after that point, where the complete cliff begans sliding down it transforms into a rotational mass/rockslide which came to a halt. my guess the rootof the cliff is buried underneath the sand and as waves and weather eroded the foot of the wall it began crumbling. After the mass balances shifted the whole cliff began sliding down pushing up the mud. The Rest of the cliff, thats still kinda hanging on there will be for sure coming down... but thats a rather common process of costal erosion

[@nadogrl]

@@Add1cted - 👍🏻

[@philrussell5258]

Yeh it was like something underground was expelled. Unless it was the soft sand giving way with all that new weight on top of it.

[@mercury760]

Seen the same video different person. This is the best video. Other person kept moving the camera side to side I heard the rocks falling but didn't see it falling

[@menakles]

Watched this footage last night while a bit drunk. Woke up today and honestly thought I'd dreamt it.

[@jenniferkleczka279]

That was so cool to watch. Not living in an area that experiences this kind of thing I have a couple of questions. First how did they know this was about to happen so that they could be there to watch this and video it? Second is this something that happens regularly? Third, and this may be a dumb question, but has anyone found any cool dinosaur bones or any other fossils when something like this happens? And lastly what causes things like this to happen? Thank you for sharing. It was very interesting.

[@cfc1001001cfc]

This guy is the one in the horror movies that hears a weird sound and immediately investigates it.

[@cinemaipswich4636]

At the base of the rock fall, you can see the dark ground welling up, as if some pressure or seismic fault has happened. Perhaps the sub-ground pocket of water is pushing it up. I have not seen that before.

[@garyp.7501]

It's the pacific plate running into the continental shelf.

[@ArtsWellnessCollective]

Or it's just sand and inevitable.

[@merriemisfit8406]

It was just the saturated beach sand giving way under all that extra rock weight loading on top of it, forming the "toe" of the landslide. The saturated sand on the beach exists in a state of horizontal confining stress -- there is pressure exerted pretty much equally in all horizontal directions. But above the sand surface, there's just open air space. So if part of the saturated beach gets pushed down under a tremendous new weight of rock, the wet sand surrounding the weighted-down portion relieves the pressure on it by bulging upward, displacing vertically, and starting to ride over undisturbed beach. If the sand in the "landing area" had been dry, the stress re-distribution would have happened more through the launching out of airborne debris, and maybe no sediment-bulge toe would have formed at all. So what you saw on the Black's Beach footage was not a seismic fault scarp or a sinister bubble getting ready to pop -- it was just the beach turning into thick, chunky OOZE.

[@GodsOath_com]

CA is just compacted sand dunes along the coast. You can see it as you fly over. Nothing should be built on any shoreline cliffs. Very unstable. Up in Humboldt too.

[@GnomicMaster]

WRONG!! I have a degree in geology and you have no idea what nonsense you are spewing. California's coast is very diverse in soil and rock types.

[@GnomicMaster]

@@kathys7283 A number of possibilities. Super-saturation of unconsolidated soils is the most likely cause, however given that the west side of the San Andreas fault is in constant movement and deformation, that slide at Blacks could have been triggered by some regional crustal movement. "Mass wasting" (gravity's tantruming child) is the #1 cause of erosion, exceeding that caused by fluvial erosion, glaciation, and wind combined.

[@robincardillo4119]

Excellent video.

[@RosaWeber-lz6fu]

El paisaje que conocemos desaparece cada día frente a nuestros ojos, como se pueden reir?

[@margaret-pb6mt]

Scenes like this really make you think about the idea of “permanence”!

[@robertjensen1048]

Read up on what happened in August 2019 in Encinitas. 3 people, all from one extended family, died when a beach bluff collapsed onto a beach not all that far from here.

[@michaelripley4528]

Amazing that the weight of it are pushing the Beach up!!💯

[@rosemariemann1719]

Interesting to watch. Looks as if a lot has crumbled away and fallen, over time...🤔. How often does this much come down ? 🤔 What causes it ? Rain ? Earthquakes ? Thank you for sharing the event here 😊. Best Wishes from England 🇬🇧😊💙🦉🌹🌎💙🇬🇧

[@gsgbm]

Those trees on the edge must be absolutely bricking it! 👀

[@edwardneronha1593]

Much better recording! Ty for sharing,and turning your phone sideways 🙃. Fossils ? Gemstone?

[@byrongreen2167]

Has there been any more activity there lately??…incredible footage…Xoxoxoxoxo 👍👍👍👍👍

[@donnasmith2990]

My favorite hiking/walking spot! 😢 Does anyone know if the steps to Torrey Pines Glider port are still intact?

[@sdfotodude]

yes

[@ald6873]

Nice this version of the video is actually horizontal and doesn't have a stoner/surfer dude going "whowow" Edit: Nevermind you can hear them in the background.

[@oldfarmer9004]

Ever wonder what ancient humans must have thought of seeing something like this.

[@bobhenry6159]

Great video. I thought the camera man was on a boat. All the swaying back and forth was making me seasick. lol.

[@stevestinnett6777]

Great video but it sounds like a bunch of little school girls screaming.

[@SurvivorOfChildhoodTrauma]

Yeah, I'd have loved to have heard the beautiful sound of nature.... But, the irritating laughter overtakes everything.... It's obnoxious. But, beautiful video, despite the sadness for which it's happening.

[@keithmcfaul9310]

I completely understand to each there own. I hear in the background a number of people laughing when big chunks of the hill start falling down. I personally don't see anything humorous or funny or laughable about something like that. It's a powerful force of nature and I fail to see any humor in it. I don't know if anyone noticed it or not, but did anyone see the ground at the base of the hill uplift out of the ground at the same time a big chunk of the hill was collapsing? That would have been very scary to me if I had been standing there. That is probably why the hill was collapsing because it was being uplifted from beneath the ground.

[@LoveBandit1000]

When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me...

[@KatieReadsKoziesAndMore]

Thank you for publishing this. The other videographer needs to learn more about filming landscapes in landscape mode! This is not a knock on him. I had to learn the same lesson. I thank you both for sharing this with the world. Stay safe!

[@nemesiscorvinus8847]

Those rocks were there for thousands of years or perhaps millions of years and now they will spend another thousands or millions of years in that other position.

[@casualmeme2559]

Hmmmm that camerawork is smooth.. TOO smooth...

[@annanardo2358]

Must be seismic tremors going on down under the fault line. 😮😮

[@user-yg6dk9eh8g]

awesome camera work

[@roboftherock]

Awesome? I hate people who waggle cameras around like that. Best option was wide angle and static. That achieves maximum coverage.

[@charlesfisher1216]

There had to be something seismic going on there for it to just to keep going that long. Dangerous spot to be.

[@DudeDog.Dope.]

For the rest of his life, That guy is going to remember the time he sang the LAMEST version of Highway to the Danger Zone that anyone has ever heard.

[@latashaw1687]

Greatview everyone staying around recording what if the whole thing collapse... me and my mate climb down that Cliff two years ago in March

[@dukefurst5741]

@ 5:47 to 6:04 the flat beach sand took on a grid looking pattern.

[@Isaac-hw7vu]

My dad sent me this (so cool!!!)

[@speteydog2260]

Those cliffs look like solid rock. But they are sand.

[@zeffery101]

I heard abt this but I wish I watched this earlier so I could go looking for it. Hopefully the pile is still there.

[@pachachorly7630]

So if you're on mobile you can zoom in on something by swiping outwards with two digits on the screen. There's a lot going on and zooming in let's you enjoy it a bit more.

[@huyked]

The zoom in is a digital zoom. You can do that in post after the fact. I wish the person filming it left it at non-zoomed so we could see it, the size of certain collapsing parts, in context to the size of the cliff.

[@bellashealingartistry8934]

It looked like lava again! So cool! That would have been a wild shot had someone with a drone record!

[@jameschan9634]

This couldn't have happened in the United States, no one ran up close to take a selfie

[@traceytelfordrieckers4067]

What's the big white thing at the end? Dinosaur bone?

[@jackwood8307]

And that kids is how sand gets made. 👍

[@nataliagorska7970]

Omg I can't believe that you caught that on amera 😮.

[@NomiSyed1]

Insane!!!

[@juliocasanova6870]

Impresionante y extraño, porque se derrumbó? No parece un lugar inestable

[@greenman6141]

Pretty standard stuff...until that huge dark bulge grows out from the very foot of the cliff. THAT was fascinating and unusual.

[@o9rgeronimo979]

What kind of rock ? Anyone?

[@lightstepmorgenstern2474]

That looks like the you are a half naked guy from another video 😅👍 thanks for better footage

[@Tomhdg]

When the earth decides to get involved in the whole renovation craze…. Property Brothers: “We can move the kitchen to this side of the house and rotate the bathroom to….” Earth: “Here. Hold my beer…” 😂

[@keithrock939]

Spectacular

[@carolinetilbury8787]

This is so sad, we are having this as well in Cornwall. I can't understand people standing and watching and laughing, I find that bloody disgusting. Our beautiful countries are falling apart literally. 😢😮

[@c5back9]

Better get ready for the big one Cali. It could happen any moment now.

[@antiagonista]

I've heard that for over 30 years already....

[@CallMeMimi27]

that damn squirrel!

[@NowInAus]

One day he’ll get it. One day

[@sypoth]

Anyone else notice the guy on the triangular peak?

[@MaryReese-oy8is]

The earth is moving for sure

[@kathymurphy7217]

What makes it do this?

[@quequitem]

O planeta é vivo❤

[@c-bass710]

Imagine the GEM AND MINERAL FINDS in all that!

[@oldfarthacks]

That material is dead sea creatures. If you want the good stuff then you need the stuff off the mountains in the area that have real rock. Go and dig around in the canyon above Azusa on highway 39.

[@c-bass710]

@@oldfarthacks I actually live near there! Thanks for the tip, stranger! Much appreciated! While I don’t go collecting often as to respect the environment, I look forward to doing some lite hunting in the future!

[@MrMarkar1959]

it's okay👍🏼 there's some dirt from Ohio the train is delivering to fill in the cracks

[@S7atorarepotenetoperarota6S]

Спасибо за зрелище👍🤝🇷🇺

[@gl9412]

Excellent, thanks KentAmeneyro. Best watched with the sound off - to suppress those tedious insecure titterings of "Oh my GOoDness" responses - just say "Oh My God" and be done with it. Also, just a tip - we viewers can't see outside the image frame, but you can, so it's a more enjoyable and informative view (for us) if the camera is fixed stationary so we continue to concentrate on what's in the frame, rather than you panning away from what we're trying to observe to what you can outside the frame.

[@GeologicalNerd]

Yeah, I agree with keeping the camera steady. Dude can't make up their mind. Bit of an r/killthecameraman moment.

[@bestamerica]

' did feel earthquake or not... magma is a push up the shore land

[@birdman4274]

Looks pretty safe to go back up now.

[@oldmanwalking8561]

Right, you first. 😝

[@wasabiginger6993]

Eh, can we surf it???

[@dbyers3897]

If you found this impressive, try visiting Turkey. An entire region was leveled.

[@LazloNQ]

Jetty!

[@duanebrodnick5212]

Thank goodness there were no home nearby.

[@milkeeway]

Gravity ALWAYS wins.

[@philgibson9919]

I’ll lie down at the base when life gets that slow.

[@ambassador8524]

4:07 That’s a surfer laugh

[@Thatguynacho]

We humans are so easily impressed/entertained 😂

[@dennisthompson6242]

Any hobby gold prospectors in the area will be there the next day taking samples...

[@Montyturnbow]

Good

[@TA.387]

Somebody watching the chosen and willed the mountain to move

[@xxSPiKeZxx326]

You wouldn't catch me dead walking anywhere close to that rubble pile THAT soon after 100+ton chunks of earth came tumbling down 😅

[@rayhughel1508]

Prime example of gravitationally assisted erosion & master class on how scree forms a talus

[@davidfox3258]

I'll wait till the heatings on...

[@olgamarchenko6576]

WOW 😳

[@michaeladolf4237]

Strange, no fossile hunters out there, you would never find a better opportunity

[@S7atorarepotenetoperarota6S]

Почему отложения не горизонтальные, а вертикальные, рушится как постройка..... 🧐

[@yoli_1_n_Only]

Does anyone notice the bird?

[@hilarybromley3064]

Why the laughing?

[@detnoswal]

Much like watching a glacier calf

[@admiralbenbow5083]

Thats not rock. Its like sand with a few stones in it !!

[@257.4MHz]

Some very stupid people walking up to the edge of the debris. Including the camera person.

[@bobclarke2705]

Same video as ten other people....this gets boring after watching it twice

[@jeanyvesangers3885]

Like the state falling apart…..

[@Carlitosway2369]

Is that black earth that came up at the bottom lava or something? Lol wtf is that?! Lol

[@Rapture_Ready_Rabbit]

!!!!! TIME HAS RUN OUT !! John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Don't ignore this message... REPENT NOW !! TRUST that God raised Him from the dead !! By FAITH accept JESUS's blood alone as payment for your sins unto Salvation, to escape what's about to happen !!

[@dalevandenbussche5004]

Maybe if we get lucky the whole state will slide in!!!

[@wayneakins7850]

Just shows California is going to the ocean

[@Oct14cya]

And then Godzilla appeared.