Millions in U.S. Face Mega-Wave from Island Collapse (don't worry about meteors)

reuters ^ | Mon 9 August, 2004 14:33 | Scientist Bill McGuire, Jeremy Lovell

[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.

[oldcomputerguy]

"I don't see how it would propagate a 300 foot tall wave 3000 miles away."

Water is a transmission medium, you create a disturbance at one end and it is propagated for long distances. The rising shoreline at the other end causes the wave to rise. A normal earthquake tsunami is typcially limited to 30 feet or so due to the nature of the event that causes it. Landslide tsunamis are altogether different as to their consequences.

[zeugma]

Wrong!

New York Times headline:

Glub, glub, glub...

;-)

[MD_Willington_1976]

Saw a show about the exact same thing except it was the north end of the big island in Hawaii...gonna kill us all on the western seaboard...run run we're all gonna die

aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Slicksadick]

Check out the size of these debris fields, and the northeast direction they slipped.

Debris from enormous landslides off Oahu and Molokai extends hundreds of kilometers
Map © 2001 MBARI

[Slicksadick]

[Iberian]

Bad policy to write articles while high on acid.

[ßuddaßudd]

Yikes!

[ßuddaßudd]

Thank you for clarifying that for me.

[Truth666]

Recently Discovered Near-Earth Asteroid Makes Record-breaking Approach to Earth
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1100171/posts

[Truth666]

TIMING FOR THIS STORY - BREAKING

After a time of 'silence', discoveries of so-called 'minor planets' came in a hurry today - astronomers detected at least 10 new objects in the last 24 hours.
These discoveries are being reported to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) and being published on the so-called NEO confirmation page.
Now have look on today's discoveries:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/NEO/ToConfirm.html
Object AO89913 is very interesting, scroll back the ephemeridis by 67 hours and you will see a dramatic drop in "V" which describes brightness and a decreasing value in 'V' means increasing brightening. Further there was a huge increase in "motion" which describes sky-mechanical size of the object. The MPC signed the trajectory at that point (08/07/04) with "***" which means the object will come close as 0.0027 AU or 1 Lunar distance in the following 100 hours.
There's still a great deal of uncertainty with this prelimanary trajectory but the object might have come extremely close in the last 72 hours or will do so in the next 24 hours.
Beyond this object there are others which are also supposed to come 'close' especially AO86297 because its trajectory has been confirmed and a MPEC bulletin with more information will be posted soon but at this stage I can tell you it's also going to be a 'near miss', 5 to 10 lunar distances is a first estimate.
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/NEO/ToConfirm.html

[rwfromkansas]

what are you talking about?

[rwfromkansas]

There would not be a NY, much less a NYT if this happens.

[RightWhale]

You may have missed that sci-fi classic. Had a painting of the moon on the cover, kind of like a melon at the instant of being struck by a 30 cal rifle bullet.

[Willie Green]

Surely, it is all GEORGE BUSH'S FAULT!

I agree. The Army Corps of Engineers should be building a massive seawall the entire length of the East Coast to protect us from this disaster. The left-wing enviro-whackos won't like it, but we're in desperate need for Homeland Security to defend our coastlines!

[presidio9]

Millions in U.S. Face Mega-Wave from Island Collapse ...Children, Minorities Hardest Hit.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic was posted 8/9/2004. Thanks Truth666.

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[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 08/09/2004. Thanks Truth666.