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To: RegulatorCountry
You're right about that. The problem is with using the term "tsunami" to apply to the wave from an asteroid impact, as well as the wave resulting from an ocean floor earthquake. When I hear "tsunami", I immediately think of the wave that's gonna hit us after the "big one".

As the article, and other posters say, the wave from an asteroid starts off big. What we normally call a tsunami starts off as a barely perceptible ripple, which travels at hundreds of miles an hour through deep water. When it approaches shore, it's slowed down by the rising bottom & the water bunches up on itself. For instance, it can go from a speed of about 700 mph and amplitude of 1/4 inch to a speed of about 40 mph and amplitude of (say) 40 feet by the time it reaches shore.

If I'd thought about it, I would have realized that you were discussing the astroid-type wave -- the subject of the thread. Just when I figured out how to escape a "tsunami", out comes this latest doomsday scenario -- one I couldn't beat.
86 posted on 05/13/2006 8:15:25 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: USFRIENDINVICTORIA

I'll just choose to believe that any near Earth object of sufficient size to cause such devastation has been discovered, catalogued and monitored, so we'd have at least enough warning to get out of harms way. Of course, this one wiped out the majority of species in existence at the time, so getting away from and surviving the immediate effects of the impact would be no guarantee. Sunlight would be thoroughly obscured for quite some time, agriculture would fail and winter would be something else for decades or longer. Just surviving would be quite an adventure, to put it mildly.


88 posted on 05/13/2006 8:26:28 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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