Continued land movement in Rancho Palos Verdes creates stunning new stretch of shoreline

The devastation left behind from a series of landslides on the Palos Verdes Peninsula is still very apparent on Tuesday, with large cracks in the roads and tarps covering various hillsides behind red-tagged homes. 

Even still, months after the movement began, earth continues to shift, creating an unexpected and stunning new stretch of shoreline near Rancho Palos Verdes. 

"Somebody said, 'Oh, you know there's a new beach.' It's not really a beach yet," said city geologist Mike Phipps. "A beach typically has sand on it. This is just literally landslide debris, a lot of rocks being pushed up and out of the surf."

A few month's difference is astonishing when viewing side-by-side photos of the shoreline pre-2024 and six months later, with a few hundred feet of new rocky shore that formed as the land continues to move, piling up under the water's edge. 

"What's happening is, the ground is rising up and coming up, right through the ocean and lifting it up out of the ocean," Phipps said. 

He says that the phenomenon is evidence that the landslides are much deeper than they initially thought, and moving at deeper levels than they had previously modeled. He says that they could be as deep as 300 feet near the cost of Palos Verdes Drive South. 

Phipps says that the significance of this is that they need to what exactly what they're dealing with as they plan where and how they will drill to get water out of the mass of landslide debris to halt it's devastating impact. 

"The sad part is that the landslide is moving," he said, noting that it can move up to a foot a week. "In a much bigger area and way faster than it ever has. ... There are many, many properties on that landslide that are moving and probably being damaged. That makes me sad given what I do for a living as a geologist. ... We're trying to find ways to slow down the landslide so that people don't lose their properties."

Phipps suggests that anyone considering taking a hike in the area should think again, as the land is actively moving and at the toe of a landslide that is literally falling into the ocean.