[cripplecreek]

Most scientists in the field do not buy the huge East coast tsunami threat from a collapse of La Palma. Bad documentaries do a poor job of presenting all views on the subject.

Such a landslide simply doesn't impart the same energy as an entire seafloor movement. That's not to say that it couldn't cause a tsunami, only that the scale is overblown. A truly big ocean wide tsunami takes a big movement. A landslide can cause a big tsunami over a relatively small area. There's a man living in Alaska who found himself some 300 feet up the side of a mountain due to a landslide into a fjord. It was a relatively small landslide but it was in a contained area.

[JimSEA]

As an asside, the length of the fault movement also contributes to any possible tsunami and while the land movement in the Canary Islands would be more pronounced than in Japan’s quake the length of the disturbance would be far smaller. It would be more like a pebble dropped in a pond. A lesser volume of water would be displaced. In short, I quite agree with you about the potential and reasons behind your argument.