Posted on 08/09/2004 10:27:49 AM PDT by Truth666
The bad news is tens of millions of people along the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada may drown if the slow slippage of a volcano off north Africa becomes a cataclysmic collapse.
But the good news is the world is not likely to be destroyed by an asteroid any time soon.
Scientist Bill McGuire told that some time in the next few thousand years the western flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma will collapse, sending walls of water 100 meters high racing across the Atlantic.
A chunk of the volcano [Cumbre Vieja, western flank of the Canary Island of La Palma] the size of a small island began to slide into the ocean in 1949. There is almost no monitoring of the volcano, giving virtually no chance of any advance warning of another eruption which could trigger the catastrophe.
He said the slow collapse -- started by an eruption in 1949 -- would almost certainly be turned catastrophic by another eruption of the volcano which erupts every 25 to 200 years.
The last eruption was in 1971, and prior to 1949, the previous eruption was in 1712.
"A future president of the United States must make a call on what to do when La Palma collapses," he said.
On a brighter note, scientist Benny Peiser of John Moores University in Liverpool told the same news conference that the threat of a cataclysmic strike on the earth by a large asteroid was fading rapidly as money was pumped into finding them.
Within 10 to 30 years, all the near-earth asteroids will have been charted. Scientists believe they can find a way to steer an asteroid out of the way of the earth, as long as they have enough warning it is coming.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.co.uk ...
Wow, I didn't know Nelson's column was so tall.
BUMP!
Hey! Hey! There are plenty of Republicans in Virgina. Except for a certain few counties in Northern Virginia, Virginia is a pretty conservative state and usually votes for Republican presidential candidates.
Seriously, there are three mega natural disaster scenarios. They involve: 1) a large asteroid striking the Earth, 2) eruption of a supervolcano (like Yosemite National Park - the entire park is the caldera for a supervolcano and it is swelling at one end now...)and 3) the collapse of part or all of a large mountain or island into the sea (in addition to Las Palmas, over in the Pacific, there is a major portion of the big island of Hawaii that is cracking off...).
We are only working on Number 1. We need to start working on the other two...and if you can think big enough and boldly enough, their effects can be forstalled or at least mitigated.
Imagine how much geothermal energy you could extract from a super volcano. Imagine the effect pulling all that heat out of the cap would have on preventing/forestalling its softening. Imagine using all that electrical energy to drive the machinery that dig the underground channels that direct the lava out of the caldera to the Pacific when the time comes to release the pressure in a controlled fashion? Imagine having so much electrical energy available that it becomes a major US export to ...everywhere.
A portion of an island can fall into the sea as one big chunk of rock or as one billion, two billion, or however-many-billion-it-takes fist size pieces over a twenty year period. The mass is the same, the effect on the ocean very different. Sounds like a necessary and useful task for convict labor. I nominate the 600+ detainees at GITMO for the first shift with others to follow from the hard core convicts from every country that will be effected by a collapse. Let them really break rocks for a real purpose.
A wave about 30 miles high? This story lacks credibility
They probably meant 50 meters, not 50 kilometers.
If we lost the voters who live within 5 KM of both coasts, America would be about 85% Republican. There is always a silver lining.
We can practically see the thing from the East Coast. Daredevils base-jump off of it in space suits. It's the only man-made structure on the planet that that crazy Frenchman who free-climbs everything hasn't conquered. If it ever falls over, you'll feel the ground shake in Iceland.
:-P
The damage to sand castles over the entire eastern seaboard is expected to be devestating, with significantly greater destruction if the collapse occurs in the months of July or August.
LOL
Now we know what Lady Hamilton saw in him.
"If you have a degree you can make any crazy claims you like."
This is not a crazy claim, it was documented in a television program on one of the cable channels. It is a hugh amount of earth that will eventually slide into the sea. This is the equivalent of you slipping into the bathtub. It sends a wall of water in the opposite direction. It is not really a matter of if, more a matter of when. The island earth mass is honeycombed with collected water which is leading to the certain slip into the sea.
Are you series?
This is the equivalent of you slipping into the bathtub.
Given the size of the Canary Islands and the size of the Atlantic Ocean, it's more like me dropping my keys in the bathtub. Probably less in terms of the ratio of land mass vs. the amount of water.
I just don't buy the proportions here - this much rock vs. the Atlantic does not equal all that much displacement, proportionally. I know it would cause a massive disturbance, but I don't see how it would propagate a 300 foot tall wave 3000 miles away.
Those should be hard to brace for.
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