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Aleutian finding topples [TSUNAMI] theory
Anchorage Daily News ^ | December 25, 2004) | DOUG O'HARRA

Posted on 12/26/2004 10:56:24 PM PST by BenLurkin

Scientists traveled to the Aleutian Chain last summer to check out a colossal submarine landslide blamed for one of the most devastating tsunamis of the 20th century. They wanted to find out how sea-floor life responded to such a huge disturbance and produce detailed charts. What they got was a shock of seismic proportions.

Instead of a 12-mile-wide avalanche dropping 30 to 40 miles down the continental slope into the abyss of the Aleutian Trench, sonar surveys and the remotely operated underwater vehicle Jason II found regular ocean bottom, eroded and crusty and largely undisturbed.

There was no slide. And now no one knows what triggered the legendary tsunami of 1946, which destroyed Scotch Cap lighthouse on Unimak Island and killed 159 people in Hawaii.

"Basically, we found sea floor evidence that will cause tsunami modelers to rethink the cause and characteristics of the 1946 tsunami," wrote research associate Tony Rathburn and professor Lisa Levin, principle investigators with the project at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "The sea floor landslide ... that seemed to be evident from previous, low-resolution (charts) does not exist."

A Hawaiian geophysicist working on the project now believes that an underwater slide probably hit farther east along the Aleutian slope, near a feature that might be the toe of a previously unknown avalanche. Triggered by an earthquake, this slide would have created a tsunami. When the wave rolled into shallow water, the theory goes, it accelerated into a bore of incredible power, surging along the shore of Unimak Island with hurricane force.

"You think of a 40-foot wave or a 50-foot-high wave traveling at 140 mph," said Gerard Fryer with the University of Hawaii at Manoa in an interview earlier this month. "It's an astounding image. It's almost beyond our comprehension."

(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Alaska; US: Hawaii
KEYWORDS: 1946; alaska; aleutians; catastrophism; hawaii; muttonisland; roguewave; roguewaves; tsunami; tsunamis

1 posted on 12/26/2004 10:56:25 PM PST by BenLurkin
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To: Phsstpok; SunkenCiv; blam; backhoe

Ping


2 posted on 12/26/2004 10:57:03 PM PST by BenLurkin (Big government is still a big problem.)
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To: BenLurkin

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB8VW3A83E.html


3 posted on 12/26/2004 11:15:53 PM PST by BenLurkin (Big government is still a big problem.)
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To: BenLurkin

Very interesting!


4 posted on 12/26/2004 11:16:04 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (A Proud member of Free Republic ~~The New Face of the Fourth Estate since 1996.)
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To: BenLurkin

"You think of a 40-foot wave or a 50-foot-high wave traveling at 140 mph," said Gerard Fryer with the University of Hawaii at Manoa in an interview earlier this month. "It's an astounding image. It's almost beyond our comprehension."

Well I wonder he they would rate the following if 140 MPH is beyond comprehension:

Moving at about 500 mph, the waves took more than two hours to reach Sri Lanka, where the human toll has been horrific, and longer to spread to India and the east coast of Africa


5 posted on 12/27/2004 12:17:21 AM PST by taxesareforever
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To: BenLurkin

58 years from now all scientists will eventually agree that Global Warming was bunk, too.


6 posted on 12/27/2004 12:30:55 AM PST by DTogo (U.S. out of the U.N. & U.N out of the U.S.)
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To: BenLurkin

One theory they did not mention could account for their observations and the tsunamis. Perhaps a large meteor struck the ocean, disintegrated, creating the tsunamis and the blast triggered the small earthquakes that they originally attributed the tsunamis to.


7 posted on 12/27/2004 1:32:29 AM PST by Swordmaker (Tagline now open, please ring bell.)
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To: Swordmaker
Perhaps a large meteor struck the ocean, disintegrated, creating the tsunamis and the blast triggered the small earthquakes that they originally attributed the tsunamis to

Or, the Jolly Green Giant flushed his toilet.

Or, Teddy Kennedy did a cannonball from an Alaskan Cliff.

If they could confirm what caused it, would it make any difference? Then or in the future?

8 posted on 12/27/2004 1:48:41 AM PST by leadhead ((Bats and Demobats turn left when they leave the cave))
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To: leadhead
If they could confirm what caused it, would it make any difference? Then or in the future?

Well, their problem was that they couldn't figure out how a 7.2 earthquake could have created such large tsunamis... so they invented this HUGH undersea avalanche to explain it. Now they are back to square one... no avalanche.

Since they thought that a large avalanche caused the tsunamis, they have been looking for areas that might have other large avalanches and some of their warning system for tsunamis is based on what may be a flawed theory. That is series.

However, with our modern system of seismagraphs, satellite observations, and other cool stuff, we could still warn any places due to be struck by a tsunami early enough to get the people out and give them time to say good-bye to their houses...

But then we didn't get the word out fast enough in Sumatra and Thailand...

9 posted on 12/27/2004 1:56:34 AM PST by Swordmaker (Tagline now open, please ring bell.)
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To: Swordmaker

Scientist: Asteroid May Hit Earth in 2029
Yahoo/AP ^ | 12/23/04 | JOHN ANTCZAK
Posted on 12/23/2004 8:24:16 PM PST by hole_n_one
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1307719/posts


10 posted on 12/27/2004 11:53:52 AM PST by SunkenCiv (There's nothing new under the Sun. That accounts for the many quotes used as taglines.)
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To: BenLurkin

Tidal Waves Kill More Than 700 in Asia
yahoo/AP ^ | 12-26-04 | LELY T. DJUHARI
Posted on 12/26/2004 1:18:45 AM PST by sully777
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308542/posts

Tidal Waves Kill More Than 3,200 in Asia
(Update: Death toll now tops 11,500)
AP ^ | Sun, Dec 26, 2004
Posted on 12/26/2004 2:09:10 AM PST by Grzegorz 246
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308556/posts

Asian Tsunamis Surge Against East African Coast
Reuters ^ | Dec 26, 2004 12:11 PM ET | C. Bryson Hull
Posted on 12/26/2004 9:53:01 AM PST by sully777
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308649/posts

Asian Tsunamis Kill at Least 20,000 People
AP ^ | 12/26/04 | DILIP GANGULY
Posted on 12/26/2004 8:57:28 PM PST by TexKat
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1308840/posts


11 posted on 12/27/2004 12:00:35 PM PST by SunkenCiv (There's nothing new under the Sun. That accounts for the many quotes used as taglines.)
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To: SunkenCiv

bttt


12 posted on 12/27/2004 12:25:33 PM PST by BenLurkin (Big government is still a big problem.)
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To: BenLurkin

Came across this article from December 12th regarding unexplained deep "chatter" 40 miles beneath the San Adreas fault. I wonder if there is a possible connection to the recent quake activity on the wern rim of the 'Ring of Fire'.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1298650/posts


13 posted on 12/27/2004 1:24:16 PM PST by BenLurkin (Big government is still a big problem.)
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To: 75thOVI; Abathar; agrace; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; ...
Note: this topic is from 12/26/2004. Thanks BenLurkin.

14 posted on 07/26/2015 11:36:52 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW)
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To: BenLurkin; Strategerist; SunkenCiv; null and void; Swordmaker; All

Did you also note that this was Dec. 2004? At any rate, was interesting reading. It noted similar activity in the Cascadia Subduction Zone and in Japan. Well, we all know what happened in Japan. There they did not have a sea slide, but a major movement of a fault line. According to a graphic shown the other night, the lead edge of the upper fault edge flipped upward along a 300 mile course. This would have made a huge surge in the ocean above it, hence the monstrous tsunami.

I think that even back then we had enough aerial observation possibilities, that a significant boloid oceanic crash would have been noted. Perhaps someone else has more information on those technicalities. I have noted a tendency for severe earthquakes after a period of drought. The first time I became aware of this was in the major 1972 Nicaraguan quake. It followed an extensive period of drought. Since I had traveled there a few years before and also had access to photos of terrible destruction, I was very interested in following this story. It occurred to me that the prolonged drought could have shrunken the earth along the fault line from lack of lubricating water, so that whatever material was preventing slippage along the fault at last failed. It would be interesting to determine how frequent other major earthquakes are relative to prolonged droughts. The link below is an extensive scientific article on the human impact of this disaster and lessons for other quake prone areas like California. Unfortunately, it does not cover how the Somoza family monopoly on concrete increased the suffering but eventually lead to the overthrow of their corrupt government.

http://www.rwkates.org/pdfs/a1973.02.pdf

In researching several stories on major earthquakes and volcanoes I came across what I perceived to be a pattern. That there were periods of about 30 years of increased activity, and then longer periods of decreased activity. During 1783 Iceland’s Laki Fissure erupted over 8 months causing widespread problems http://www.wired.com/2013/06/local-and-global-impacts-1793-laki-eruption-iceland/
Another major activity period was the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12, which also included a 20,000 death causing earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela. The last major event of that period I consider to be the 1815 eruption of Tambora, which also had worldwide effects including the year with no summer highlighted by frost every month in New England.

The next major period I believe started in 1884 with Krakatao volcano, included earthquakes in Charleston (1886) and San Francisco (1906). There were major volcanoes around the Caribbean Plate—1902, Pelee in Martinique and LaSoufriere in St. Vincent, Santa Maria and others in Central America. I feel the culmination was the eruption of Katmai (Novarupta) in Alaska 1912 which left a 6 mile diameter crater.

In 1982 the next major period began with the Mt St. Helens eruption and others in Mexico and further south, continued with Pinatubo in 1991, included the terrible Indonesian earthquake and tsunami, and perhaps has concluded with the great Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2014. Then again, there may be one more big surprise. I am not holding my breath because we don’t know when/if.

Feel free to dispute my hypothesis, or throw in other disasters in those time periods for parts of the earth I have not focused on like Europe, Asia and Africa


15 posted on 07/31/2015 5:03:34 PM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: gleeaikin

Looks like I posted it in 2004.


16 posted on 07/31/2015 5:35:50 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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