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Scientists: Volcano Could Swamp U.S. with Mega-Tsunami
China Daily ^ | 3/29/2005 | Staff Writers

Posted on 03/29/2005 3:41:11 PM PST by ex-Texan

A wall of water up to 55 yards high crashing into the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, flattening everything in its path -- not a Hollywood movie but a dire prophecy by some British and U.S. academics.

As the international community struggles to aid victims of last month's devastating tsunami in southern Asia, scientists warn an eruption of a volcano in Spain's Canary Islands could unleash a "mega-tsunami" larger than any in recorded history.

Hammocks almost buried at the beach of Pajara district in Fuerteventura island (Canary Island), southern Spain. Countries all around the Atlantic rim could be hit by killer tsunamis at any time between now and the next 10,000 years, the British government's chief scientific adviser said.[AFP/file]

According to their controversial study, an explosion of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma could send a chunk of rock twice the size of the Isle of Wight into the Atlantic at up to 220 miles an hour.

Many experts believe the risk of "mega-tsunamis" from such a massive landslide on La Palma has been hugely overstated.

But in the study's scenario, energy released would equal the electricity consumption of the United States for six months, sending gigantic tidal waves across the Atlantic at the speed of a jet plane.

Devastation in the United States would reach trillions of dollars with tens of millions of lives at risk. Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, Brazil, the Caribbean and West Africa would also be swamped by giant waves.

"It may occur in the next eruption, which could be next year, or ... it may be 10 eruptions down the line," said Bill McGuire of Britain's Benfield Hazard Research Center.

Cumbre Vieja, which last exploded in 1971, typically erupts at intervals of between 20 and 200 years.

"We just don't know when it will happen, but are people prepared to take the risk after the Indian Ocean events?" McGuire said, calling for a program to monitor the slide in Cumbre Vieja's flank.

"We need to get people out in advance of the collapse itself. Once the collapse has happened, the Caribbean would have 9 hours, the U.S. 6 to 12 hours to evacuate tens of millions of people," he said.

SCAREMONGERING?

Other experts say such predictions about La Palma or the Hawaiian volcano of Kilauea are grossly exaggerated.

The Tsunami Society, an international association of experts, dismisses such theories as "scaremongering." It argues Cumbre Vieja would not collapse in a single block and the wave generated would be much smaller.

"We are talking about thousands of years in the future. Anything could happen. An asteroid could also fall on earth," George Pararas-Carayannis, founder of the Tsunami Society, said.

Many wave experts believe tsunami from abrupt landslides dissipate more quickly than those generated by powerful earthquakes, like the Dec. 26 quake off Indonesia which stretched thousands of miles along the ocean floor.

Charles Mader, editor of the Science of Tsunami Hazards journal and an expert on wave modeling, predicts that even in the event of a massive landslide on La Palma the tsunami reaching North America would be no more than 1 meter high.

But McGuire stands by the wave modeling for the La Palma tsunami, carried out by Steven Ward of the University of California.

As the world reels from the Indian Ocean disaster, which killed more than 150,000 people, oceanographers and geologists agree the threat of tsunamis has been underestimated.

"It would not surprise me at all if tomorrow we saw another tsunami like this," said Pararas-Carayannis, pointing to faults off Portugal, Puerto Rico and Peru as possible risks.

For McGuire, a warning system in the Indian Ocean could have completely prevented loss of life in Sri Lanka and India from south Asian tsunami, as in most cases people would only have had to travel 1 kilometer inland to avoid the waves.

He ranks tsunami risk as second only to global warming in the hazards facing the planet.

"With coastlines massively built up now, particularly in developing countries, tsunami are a big problem because, unlike earthquakes, they transmit death and destruction across entire oceans," he said.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: alaska; archaeology; bermudaevidence; california; callingartbell; canaryislands; cascadia; catastrophism; cumbrevieja; earthquake; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; hawaii; history; lapalma; megatsunami; megatsunamis; oregon; pacific; pugetsound; theendisnigh; tsunami; tsunamis; ustsunamithreat; volcano; washington
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To: TBall

No problem. Is a bartender included?


101 posted on 03/29/2005 7:13:47 PM PST by Mad_Tom_Rackham (Florida: suppressio veri, suggestio falsi)
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To: TBall
"I'm going to start a company that makes tsunami survival pods."

I'll take one if I can get four years worth of food, other misc modern supplies and seeds inside. (Kinda like an ark.)

102 posted on 03/29/2005 7:15:16 PM PST by blam
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To: kalee
Some Moslem scholar predicts it will happen in 2007. He says the Koran says so. I saw a thread about it here on FR earlier this afternoon.

I wonder if a nuke in just the right place could trigger it. I wonder if our enemies might be thinking about a "plausibly deniable" disaster being visited on the US

103 posted on 03/29/2005 7:15:42 PM PST by SauronOfMordor (This space for rent)
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To: SauronOfMordor
"I wonder if a nuke in just the right place could trigger it. I wonder if our enemies might be thinking about a "plausibly deniable" disaster being visited on the US"

A force multiplyer of sorts, huh?

104 posted on 03/29/2005 7:21:43 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
Interesting, and thanks. I haven't read these works. "Nature" seems to permit "life explosions" following "mass extinctions", regardless of the precursor event.

I have come to understand that major volcanic eruptions of antiquity killed mainly via tertiary effects, such as crop destruction (as opposed to blast effects, tsunamis, etc.). I have also come to believe that American Indians were descendant of immigrants from mainland China.

I wonder, would this imply that the ancient residents of China fared far better than other genetic stocks of the time?

105 posted on 03/29/2005 7:30:25 PM PST by Mad_Tom_Rackham (Florida: suppressio veri, suggestio falsi)
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To: unkus

All of us Coloradoans will be so busy fighting back the freak glaciers caused by global warming we won't have time to prepare for the "Yellowstone Super Volcano", the impending asteroid collision or the "Canary Island super tsunami".
Personally I've signed up for slow death by dehydration and starvation -- which I understand is quite euphoric.


106 posted on 03/29/2005 7:47:00 PM PST by hford02 (I have to get my tinfoil hat refitted -- I keep picking up NPR and Air America)
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To: ex-Texan

Last time I checked the Appalachians are taller than 55 yards and the Florida peninsula ought to block the Gulf and the Mississippi watershed very nicely. D.C., New York, Boston, and Miami? Well, it's been real.


107 posted on 03/29/2005 7:55:02 PM PST by katana
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To: Mad_Tom_Rackham
"I have come to understand that major volcanic eruptions of antiquity killed mainly via tertiary effects, such as crop destruction (as opposed to blast effects, tsunamis, etc.). I have also come to believe that American Indians were descendant of immigrants from mainland China."

I've been a catastrophist for some time. I think the original paleo-Americans were from the Jomon - Ainu stock. Oppenheimer believes there were five different waves of immigrants to North America and he outlines them in his book but, the finer details have already left my mind.

"I wonder, would this imply that the ancient residents of China fared far better than other genetic stocks of the time?"

Think Sundaland before it went underwater. It would have been a great place to spend the Ice Age. I believe the Asians and Caucasians were distinguished from a common source (maybe the Jomon - Ainu) during the Last Glacial Maximum. I think the homeland of most of today's Caucasians is Gansu, China.

108 posted on 03/29/2005 7:58:58 PM PST by blam
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To: ex-Texan
"We just don't know when it will happen, but are people prepared to take the risk after the Indian Ocean events?" McGuire said, calling for a program to monitor the slide in Cumbre Vieja's flank.

Somebody needs funding.

109 posted on 03/29/2005 7:59:10 PM PST by patton ("Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.")
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To: El Gato

***It's already happened. Those automated telephone menu devices are a sort of robot you know.***

Answer: When the robot device tells you to press #1 for some service, smash your hand with a hammer and wait - don't press nuthin'.....they will think you have a rotary phone, and in a minute or so, a human being will ask you what you need.

A copper gave me that tip.............FRegards

(The hand-smashing part was mine - I'm real good at hanging pictures...)


110 posted on 03/29/2005 8:26:18 PM PST by gonzo (Pray for Terri..................................)
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a bunch of old links, probably most went into the fire on a cold night:
Asteroids and Tsunamis
by Michael Paine
Tsunami can travel at around 400 mph in deep water. When they reach shallow water they slow down, and that's when the real danger begins. The front of the wave slows first and the effect is like a pile-up on a freeway, with the rear of the wave catching up to the front. The wave increases in height from this bunching effect. The final height of the wave depends on several factors, but the shape of the sea floor has the greatest impact.
Here's three links about possible landslides which could trigger tsunamis. Not exactly earthquakes, but good examples of things which could be triggered by earthquakes and lead to worse.
The Hilina Slump a.k.a. "The Big Crack"
by William Corliss
In New South Wales, Australia, there is geological evidence that part of this coast was scoured by a Hawaii generated tsunami 100,000 years ago. A 4,760 cubic mile chunk of the Big Island (Hawaii) is breaking away at the rate of 4 inches per year.
When Massive Chunks Of Hawaii Start Falling Into The Sea
The Drowning Wave
Okay, here's a link that (I think) my online friend Moonstruck posted:
Could sea slides occur off N.J. coast?
by William Corliss
The researchers theorize that the water could be trapped deep in sediments on the edge of the continental shelf, a place on the sea bottom that is rather like the edge of a mountaintop. In that area, the sea bottom drops steeply from a few hundred feet beneath the sea surface to several thousand. The scientists said high-pressure water trapped in the sediment could be released in a surge, or the water could seep out slowly, relieving the pressure. They said even a small shaking of a mild earthquake could be enough for a sudden release of the water... If the water was released suddenly, said Flemings, it could cause undersea landslides down the side of the continental shelf. Such slides, involving many tons of sediment falling like an undersea avalanche down the side of a submerged mountain, have been known to cause tsunami waves.
Luckily it's only New Jersey. ;') [joke alert! joke alert!]

111 posted on 03/29/2005 10:24:23 PM PST by SunkenCiv (last updated my FreeRepublic profile on Friday, March 25, 2005.)
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To: blam; FairOpinion; Ernest_at_the_Beach; SunkenCiv; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; 4ConservativeJustices; ...
Catastrophism, anthropology, origins ping.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest
-- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

112 posted on 03/29/2005 10:25:21 PM PST by SunkenCiv (last updated my FreeRepublic profile on Friday, March 25, 2005.)
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To: Ditter

You could walk 12 miles in a lot less than 12 hours. Better get out of your cars folks and leave everything behind. Only the sick, aged and little children should be driven.


113 posted on 03/29/2005 10:43:12 PM PST by Bellflower (A new day is Coming!)
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To: SunkenCiv

If we're gonna discuss longshot odds, I prefer to talk about me winning a $100 million lottery.


114 posted on 03/29/2005 10:51:41 PM PST by ValerieUSA
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To: HarleyD
I saw this on the Discovery Channel. Very interesting. They said it would destroy the entire east coast for up to 12 miles inland.

That's not suchj a bad thing considering how those areas vote. Picture Ted Kennedy in the aftermath bobbing around like a buouy. ;-D

115 posted on 03/29/2005 11:06:11 PM PST by piasa (Attitude Adjustments Offered Here Free of Charge)
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To: ex-Texan

well no big wave big enough to reach michigan muahahah


116 posted on 03/29/2005 11:17:47 PM PST by MetalHeadConservative35 (To the Wayne,Mi, Pop Scene...Be afriad...Be VERY afraid)
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To: MetalHeadConservative35

A big asteroid doing a cannonball into lake Michigan might do the trick!


117 posted on 03/29/2005 11:42:29 PM PST by Cementjungle
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To: Cementjungle

hey no fair lol


118 posted on 03/30/2005 12:04:49 AM PST by MetalHeadConservative35 (To the Wayne,Mi, Pop Scene...Be afriad...Be VERY afraid)
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To: Cementjungle

especially when said astroid is janet reno


119 posted on 03/30/2005 12:05:36 AM PST by MetalHeadConservative35 (To the Wayne,Mi, Pop Scene...Be afriad...Be VERY afraid)
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To: Bellflower

But people won't walk to evacuate, they will get in their cars with as much stuff as they can carry. If you have ever been in the evacuation for a hurricane you would understand what I am talking about. The traffic gets slower and slower and then you sit.


120 posted on 03/30/2005 6:15:09 AM PST by Ditter
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