Posted on 12/28/2004 6:19:53 PM PST by FormerACLUmember
Scattered across the world’s oceans are a handful of rare geological time-bombs. Once unleashed they create an extraordinary phenomenon, a gigantic tidal wave, far bigger than any normal tsunami, able to cross oceans and ravage countries on the other side of the world. Only recently have scientists realised the next episode is likely to begin at the Canary Islands, off North Africa, where a wall of water will one day be created which will race across the entire Atlantic ocean at the speed of a jet airliner to devastate the east coast of the United States. America will have been struck by a mega-tsunami.
Back in 1953 two geologists travelled to a remote bay in Alaska looking for oil. They gradually realised that in the past the bay had been struck by huge waves, and wondered what could have possibly caused them. Five years later, they got their answer. In 1958 there was a landslide, in which a towering cliff collapsed into the bay, creating a wave half a kilometre high, higher than any skyscraper on Earth. The true destructive potential of landslide-generated tsunami, which scientists named "Mega-tsunami", suddenly began to be appreciated. If a modest-sized landslide in Alaska could create a wave of this size, what havoc could a really huge landslide cause?
Scientists now realise that the greatest danger comes from large volcanic islands, which are particularly prone to these massive landslides. Geologists began to look for evidence of past landslides on the sea bed, and what they saw astonished them. The sea floor around Hawaii, for instance, was covered with the remains of millions of years’ worth of ancient landslides, colossal in size.
But huge landslides and the mega-tsunami that they cause are extremely rare - the last one happened 4,000 years ago on the island of Réunion. The growing concern is that the ideal conditions for just such a landslide - and consequent mega-tsunami - now exist on the island of La Palma in the Canaries. In 1949 the southern volcano on the island erupted. During the eruption an enormous crack appeared across one side of the volcano, as the western half slipped a few metres towards the Atlantic before stopping in its tracks. Although the volcano presents no danger while it is quiescent, scientists believe the western flank will give way completely during some future eruption on the summit of the volcano. In other words, any time in the next few thousand years a huge section of southern La Palma, weighing 500 thousand million tonnes, will fall into the Atlantic ocean.
What will happen when the volcano on La Palma collapses? Scientists predict that it will generate a wave that will be almost inconceivably destructive, far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean.
A couple do, outnumbered by those who strenuously disagree.
37° N, 30° W
So, since I'm in Upstate NY, near Buffalo, I'll have beach front property?
to the Beeb...you wish!
i live in the great lakes,so tornadoes are the worst of my worries
The assertions of the many cable science documentaries on this have been torn apart by a lot of prominent tsunami experts.
HHHmmm a "mega-Tsunami" wipes out the East Coast and the West coast falls into the Pacific with a mega earth quake......That just leaves the "red states"....
Interesting ;^)
Hopefully, Conservatives will move inland.
you mean Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida?
No way...........these are blue areas......no one believes that Mother Nature could ever had little blue babies......
Only read the headline ... is this breaking news? Should I run for high ground?!
I'd set up a protest march against the Canadians.
I suspect their calculations are off. The volume of displaced water from this landslide in the Canary Islands would be far less that what happened near Sumatra, resulting in a much smaller wave.
Ok, show me some documentation. I would be interested in reading more on this.
Alaska, Hawaii, and California have a tsunami alert system (air raid siren type of things). We need one for the East coast also, although 21st century technology needs to be used. This would include TV, Radio, and Internet warnings, as well as messages of warning sent to all cell phones in affected areas.
All "scientists" who do research on Tsunamis, volcanos, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. say "it's not if but when". Well, my doctor told me long ago that I will eventually die and I suppose that, eventually, he is right but there's no much I can do about it. In any case, I know it won't be from global warming.
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