earth science

Suicide Cliff

Suicide Cliff is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Suicide Cliff rather than just read about it. In short: Suicide Cliff is a cliff above Marpi Point Field near the northern tip of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, which achieved historic significance late in World War II. Also known as Laderan Banadero, it is a location where Japanese civilians and Imperial Japanese Army soldiers took their own lives by jumping to their deaths in July 1944 in order to avoid capture by the United States.

Key takeaways

Suicide Cliff belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Suicide Cliff to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Suicide Cliff from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Suicide Cliff is a cliff above Marpi Point Field near the northern tip of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, which achieved historic significance late in World War II. Also known as Laderan Banadero, it is a location where Japanese civilians and Imperial Japanese Army soldiers took their own lives by jumping to their deaths in July 1944 in order to avoid capture by the United States. Japanese propaganda had emphasized brutal American treatment of Japanese, citing the American mutilation of Japanese war dead and claiming U.S. Army Soldiers were bloodthirsty and without morals. Many Japanese feared the "American devils raping and devouring Japanese women and children." The precise number of suicides there is not known. One eyewitness said he saw "hundreds of bodies" below the cliff, while elsewhere, numbers in the thousands have been cited. By 1976, a park and peace memorial was in place and the location had become a pilgrimage destination, particularly for visitors from Japan. In that year, nine acres (3.6 ha) of the site were listed on the US National Register of Historic Places. The cliff is, along with the airfield and Banzai Cliff, a coastal cliff where suicides also took place, part of the National Historic Landmark District Landing Beaches; Aslito/Isley Field; & Marpi Point, Saipan Island, designated in 1985.

See also National Register of Historic Places listings in the Northern Mariana Islands Banzai Cliff

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Suicide Cliff

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Suicide Cliff claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Suicide Cliff before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Suicide Cliff ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Suicide Cliff

In research: Suicide Cliff appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Suicide Cliff in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Suicide Cliff is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cliffs of Oceania, Geography of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, Historic district contributing properties in the Northern Mariana Islands, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Suicide Cliff outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Suicide Cliff in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Suicide Cliff means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Suicide Cliff out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Suicide Cliff in simple terms?

Why does Suicide Cliff matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Suicide Cliff?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Suicide Cliff.