MegaTsunami Planned by bin Laden?

Discovery Channel | 5/14/2002 | gcallah

[gcallah]

Did anyone watch the Discovery channel on MegaTsunamis over the weekend? Basically, a huge chunk of the island of La Plama in the Canaries is in danger of collapsing into the sea, which would set off a tidal wave washing 12 miles inland on the east coast of the US.

I've heard from a contact in the Army that there are serious worries that bin Laden could try to set off a nuke on La Palma that would trigger the collapse.

Should Discovery have been allowed to show this? Should the US station troops on La Palma?

[redhead]

"That mega-tsunami show was incredible. I can't imagine how destructive a 500 foot wave would be. But I think the huge wave from Deep Impact that plows into New York is comparable."

The wave that was generated by the Good Friday Earthquake in Alaska (9.5 on the new scale) generated a wave about 80 feet high. The dead trees are still standing about a mile and a half inland from where it came ashore. It wiped out most of the town of Valdez (now called "Old Town,") and lifted a freighter (the "Chena") well up above the level of the dock, shifting her freight (logs and pipe) and severing the legs of at least one longshoreman. A couple others were killed.

The stories from Valdez seldom get told because the ones from Anchorage are on record with movies. But Valdez suffered so much damage the entire town was moved to a new site 5 miles away. Several Native villages were wiped out. The death toll from that quake was 111. I don't think any of the bodies were ever recovered. An 80-foot tsunami is bad enough. I shudder to even try to imagine a wave 500 feet high, although "Deep Impact" came to mind here, also...

[Saundra Duffy]

Earthquake in SF area and now this.

[FastCoyote]

Water doesn't travel at 400 mph in a wave, only the wave travels that fast. Water is nearly incompressible, so yes the wave can move damn fast. I'd have to look at my fluid dynamics books to see what determines their speed.

[PJ-Comix]

Use a Mega Roll of Duct Tape to secure the island of La Palma together. Just give the duct tape roll to that Christoph guy and tell him it is a massive art project.

[ArGee]

Based on the "few hours" thing the wave would have to be traveling an average of 400 mph to get to the U.S. coast that fast. If a hurricane can't sustain more than 200 mph winds for too long then how could a wave which would be meeting greater resistance sustain 400+mph?

Hurricans are travelling matter. Waves are travelling energy. Water doesn't actually move (much) when a wave travells through water. The water is the medium. So there is no physical resistance problem until the ocean begins to get shallow. That causes the matter of the water to interfere with the motion of the wave. The wave builds up as it slows down and eventually topples over itself, creating a breaker. Even though the wave is slowed at this point, it still contains most of its energy.

Shalom.

[Bikers4Bush]

At this point I'm glad I live in Ohio. Unless there's an earthquake under Erie I should be good.

[NonZeroSum]

Like I said, I'll buy the shockwave from an earthquake causing both the landslide and the tsunami but I don't buy the landslide alone.

It's not a shockwave. It's just a wave, albeit a big one. Shock waves are supersonic.

When I was a kid we'd drop H100's in a lake and every once in awhile stun some fish if the fuse was long enough for them to sink. Drop a boulder in and you don't stun squat.

Why are you comparing explosives to boulders? Do an energy, and power calculation. Dropping a boulder in has very little energy, not much power, since the energy is released slowly, relative to fireworks. Also, quantity has a quality all its own. Try dropping several million tons of rocks in and see what happens.

But primarily, we aren't talking here about "stunning," we're talking about a water displacement that turns into a massive wave on the other side of the ocean when it hits shallower water. Your boyhood experiences are entirely irrelevant. It's the physics and calculations that count, not irrelevant anecdotes.

[blam]

"While wiping most, if not all life on the NA continent, it would probably kill off most life on the planet due to the amount of sun light blocking ash in the atmosphere for a long time afterward. "

The Yellowstone 'super volcano' deposited six foot of ash on Nebraska, 600,000 years ago. The 'super volcano' Toba blew 70,000 years ago and some estimate that as few as 5,000 humans worldwide survived. (this is one cause of the DNA 'bottleneck' we hear so much about). Also, Haiwaai(sp) has a large crack and a history of 'long run' land slides. So....

[Bikers4Bush]

Well thanks there Einstein but it has already been explained much more effectively and cordially than you managed to muster.

[Young Werther]

Lex Luther planned to inundate California in "Superman".

James Bond saved Silicon Valley in "From a View to a Kill".

Boy, this storyline has better legs than "Romeo and Juliet".

Based on a post earlier today, a terrorist could shove a nuc down Old Faithful and cause the super volcano caldera below Yellowstone to explode!

Or???????

[chilepepper]

As I recall from the net postings about 'larsen's ledge' back about 4 years ago, the problem isn't with the initial breakoff of ice. The problem is that the ice was acting as a cork in a bottle holding back a tremendous glacier thousands of feet high which could drop into the sea.

I haven't heard any mention of this now that 'larsen's ledge' has actually broken off. However, it does seem to me the maps which showed where this glacier are don't coincide with the actual recent breakoffs...

[etcetera]

The U.S. should setup a nuke to counter the wave. Kind of like how reactive armor works on tanks. Since we'd have about 8 hours to react to this, we could fly a bomber out into the mid-Atlantic to drop the nuke. 8-)

[Armando Guerra]

So, if you are on Florida's east coast the trick would be to get a fast boat and get out as far as you can into deep water. Out there you should only feel the meter high wave pass. Of course, you would have no port to go back to. How about on Florida's west coast? With Florida being so flat, can we expect Cinderella's castle to be washed into the Gulf?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Buy land in Las Vegas....when the big quake hits California, you'll have waterfront property..

Do you work for LexCorp?

[finnman69]

If you see the recent documentary on this phenomenon you will see that a 492' high wave was recorded in Alaska and explained by a landslide. They also showed an experiment in a lab illustrating how the supper waves are formed in a landslide.

[Pagey]

You know what is really weird about this possible scenario? It would be covered by every news channel and it would be a 'Live on TV' happening for people on the West Coast and Middle America.The world for that matter.You'd have Airplanes and Helicopters Filming it from every angle.Can you imagine the awe that those images would inflict on the collective american consciousness?How many millions of people wouldn't get far enough inland?They wouldn't have the time if it happened at night either.Then it would backwash taking everything with it.I hope it doesn't happen in my lifetime.It was a good program.

[b4its2late]

Alert the left coast! I'm sure they have some surfer types that would love to ride that wave. ;-)

[Bikers4Bush]

The same documentary that talks about this Canary island deal?

Don't worry I know you meant super.

[TheDon]

What part of the world is the Toba super volcano located?

[Junior]

They also talked about a half-kilometer-high wave that roared down an enclosed fjord or bay back in the 50s...