Description:
Sometime between Mar. 2014 and Dec. 2014, a mile-long,
north-south trending earth fissure opened near the Tator
Hills, 13 miles south of Arizona City. The fissure extended an
additional ¾ mile to the south sometime after March 2016.
The sudden appearance of this deep, jagged fissure in an area
of modest but continuous rate of land subsidence (up to 1
inch or 3 cm annually over the past decade), and otherwise
without active fissure formation since the early 1990s, was
surprising. Arizona Geological Survey (AZGS) geoscientists
used this opportunity to couple repeat aerial photography,
available via Google Earth, with drone technology to
complement sub-meter field mapping in order to better
understand the timing and geomorphological expression of
the fissuring process.