MASSIVE TSUNAMI SWEEPS ATLANTIC COAST IN ASTEROID IMPACT SCENARIO (SURF'S UP)

UC Santa Cruz Press Release ^ | May 27, 2003 | UC Santa Cruz Press Release

[Mike Darancette]

Have at it.

[So Cal Rocket]

March 16, 2880... I think I'll call in sick that day so I can watch it all happen on TV.

[ladtx]

Massive tsunami sweeps Atlantic Coast in asteroid impact scenario for March 16, 2880

Oh man. That's the week I was planning on going to Daytona Beach.

[Larry Lucido]

Posted here. First "women and minorities hit hardest" post was #19.

[mewzilla]

But this could happen sooner if Hilliary! goes swimming....

[theDentist]

Tsunami Hits!
Minority Women, Children Hurt Most!
Global Warming, El Nino Worsen as result!!!
Bush II, Reagan Policies Faulted

[rockinonritalin]

Isn't a massive tsunami going to flood the east coast much earlier due to some island which is currently hanging by a thread and will soon drop into the sea? (I saw this on TV but do not remember any details other than we're all gonna DIE!)

[Larry Lucido]

And the first comment making fun of the name Erik Asphaug was in post #18.

[patriotUSA]

A really good book (fiction of course) about a catastrophic impact is Lucifer's Hammer. Read it 5 or 6 times. It starts with telescope discovery and follows through to one year after impact.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Surf's up, dude!

[Larry Lucido]

Minority Women, Children Hurt Most!

Hmm, only 6 posts. You guys are quicker today!

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

[cajungirl]

Part of the Hawaii edge,,I was there and they told me that. Then I went home and will no longer go there. It is like huge cliffs on the coast hanging off.

[ServesURight]

If I have my world history straight, a small asteroid landed in the Sea of Japan in the late 1880s, sending waves crashing onto Japan (Wished it happened in the 1940s)

[rockinonritalin]

Found it! Its the Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa and its a mega-tsunami! Run for your lives!

[Phsstpok]

This is all covered spectacularly well in the first third of the Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle book Lucifer's Hammer. They describe the effects of a comet striking the Earth, primarily a mid Pacific strike, but calved off pieces strike like Shoemaker-Levy 9 did on Jupiter. They have a very effective scene on a pre-strike talk show with two scientists trying to come up with analogies to get across the energies involved. They finally settle on a hot fudge sundae to represent the comet. A cubic mile of hot fudge sundae, moving at cometary speeds. Suffice to say that it is an impressive analogy, and fun to read.

They have one long scene with a surfer who figures out what's happened when the water start's to pull back from the shore off of Los Angeles. He quickly pushes out as far and as fast as he can, bascially out stripping nearly everyone else on the ocean. Finally he waits on the Tusnami and rides it in. Hundreds' of feet high and he's riding it in. His last, glorious ride. He actually begind to think he'll survive, even after riding it perhaps a half mile inland. Unfortunately there's this apartment building tower.... swat!

The rest of the book is "now what the hell do we do?" Not all politically correct, particlarly not 20 plus years later, but one of the great reads. Both Willis' Armageddon and Morgan Freeman's Deep Impact mention Lucifer's Hammer in passing, acknowledging their obvious debt to how well Niven and Pournelle did in covering and imagining the topic.

[CaptRon]

Niven and Pournelle. The best.

[ThomasMore]

Frightening thought!

[ido_now]

My appointment book says that I will be on the West Coast on March 16, 2880.

But just I case I will bring a surf board.

[Uncle Miltie]

Large asteroids would be good targets for multiple thermonuclear devices. Prepare the targeting regimen, boys. We may have to go nuclear!