Posted on 12/28/2004 6:19:53 PM PST by FormerACLUmember
Scattered across the world’s oceans are a handful of rare geological time-bombs. Once unleashed they create an extraordinary phenomenon, a gigantic tidal wave, far bigger than any normal tsunami, able to cross oceans and ravage countries on the other side of the world. Only recently have scientists realised the next episode is likely to begin at the Canary Islands, off North Africa, where a wall of water will one day be created which will race across the entire Atlantic ocean at the speed of a jet airliner to devastate the east coast of the United States. America will have been struck by a mega-tsunami.
Back in 1953 two geologists travelled to a remote bay in Alaska looking for oil. They gradually realised that in the past the bay had been struck by huge waves, and wondered what could have possibly caused them. Five years later, they got their answer. In 1958 there was a landslide, in which a towering cliff collapsed into the bay, creating a wave half a kilometre high, higher than any skyscraper on Earth. The true destructive potential of landslide-generated tsunami, which scientists named "Mega-tsunami", suddenly began to be appreciated. If a modest-sized landslide in Alaska could create a wave of this size, what havoc could a really huge landslide cause?
Scientists now realise that the greatest danger comes from large volcanic islands, which are particularly prone to these massive landslides. Geologists began to look for evidence of past landslides on the sea bed, and what they saw astonished them. The sea floor around Hawaii, for instance, was covered with the remains of millions of years’ worth of ancient landslides, colossal in size.
But huge landslides and the mega-tsunami that they cause are extremely rare - the last one happened 4,000 years ago on the island of Réunion. The growing concern is that the ideal conditions for just such a landslide - and consequent mega-tsunami - now exist on the island of La Palma in the Canaries. In 1949 the southern volcano on the island erupted. During the eruption an enormous crack appeared across one side of the volcano, as the western half slipped a few metres towards the Atlantic before stopping in its tracks. Although the volcano presents no danger while it is quiescent, scientists believe the western flank will give way completely during some future eruption on the summit of the volcano. In other words, any time in the next few thousand years a huge section of southern La Palma, weighing 500 thousand million tonnes, will fall into the Atlantic ocean.
What will happen when the volcano on La Palma collapses? Scientists predict that it will generate a wave that will be almost inconceivably destructive, far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean.
i live in the great lakes, so tornadoes are the worst of my worries.I'd think it would be keeping your socks dry. ;-)
If I didn't know better, I'd say you were wishful thinking. :^) Honestly, we may be boring in Indiana, but we really have it easy compared to the folks with the scenery. We dodge a tornado and shovel a few inches of snow every once in a while. That's about it.
No. These are blue states, so there is really no rush anyway.
I think I saw the same show. It was on Discovery Channel. If it was right, my property will become beachfront. (I'm near the geographic center of North Carolina, about 300 feet above sea level.)
When these 2+feet of snow melts.....I may be close to that anyway......Tried to get out today.....was stuck three times in less than five miles....Just turned around and came home.....Maybe Tomorrow!
The Bahamas will absorb much of the impact and considerably weaken the wave prior to it hitting SE Florida.
Having said that, I'm glad I moved west and away from the beach.
nah no need,they'd ever invade they'd have to get past the hornets nest of pissed off detroiters! lol
For an hour or so, yes.
Thank God! I had faith that I'd be safe in Jesusland.
Correction: I'm about 600 feet above sea level.
Retire in the mountains and a volcano will get cha....
Don't forget about Godzilla.
My gut feeling, unbuttressed by math, is that there isn't enough energy in even a large mass of falling rock to do more than raise a godawful local 'kerplunk'. Generating an appreciable wave the length of the East Coast involves lifting a huge mass of water to a considerable height. Engineering-Freeper commentary is encouraged.
Here you go; note that one of the named experts below, Dr. Tad Murty, was the same guy who had been bugging people in the Indian Ocean to set up a tsunami warning network...
http://www.sthjournal.org/media.htm
The mission of the Tsunami Society includes "the dissemination of knowledge about tsunamis to scientists, officials, and the public". We have established a committee of private, university, and government scientists to accomplish part of this goal by correcting misleading or invalid information released to public about this hazard. We can supply both valid, correct and important information and advice to the public, and the names of reputable scientists active in the field of tsunami, who can provide such information.
Most recently, the Discovery Channel has replayed a program alleging potential destruction of coastal areas of the Atlantic by tsunami waves which might be generated in the near future by a volcanic collapse in the Canary Islands. Other reports have involved a smaller but similar catastrophe from Kilauea volcano on the island of Hawai`i. They like to call these occurences "mega tsunamis". We would like to halt the scaremongering from these unfounded reports. We wish to provide the media with factual information so that the public can be properly informed about actual hazards of tsunamis and their mitigation.
Here are a set of facts, agreed on by committee members, about the claims in these reports:
- While the active volcano of Cumbre Vieja on Las Palma is expected to erupt again, it will not send a large part of the island into the ocean, though small landslides may occur. The Discovery program does not bring out in the interviews that such volcanic collapses are extremely rare events, separated in geologic time by thousands or even millions of years.
- No such event - a mega tsunami - has occurred in either the Atlantic or Pacific oceans in recorded history. NONE.
- The colossal collapses of Krakatau or Santorin (the two most similar known happenings) generated catastrophic waves in the immediate area but hazardous waves did not propagate to distant shores. Carefully performed numerical and experimental model experiments on such events and of the postulated Las Palma event verify that the relatively short waves from these small, though intense, occurrences do not travel as do tsunami waves from a major earthquake.
- The U.S. volcano observatory, situated on Kilauea, near the current eruption, states that there is no likelihood of that part of the island breaking off into the ocean.
- These considerations have been published in journals and discussed at conferences sponsored by the Tsunami Society.
Some papers on this subject include:
"Evaluation of the threat of Mega Tsunami Generation From ....Volcanoes on La Palma ... and Hawaii", George Pararas-Carayannis, in Science of Tsunami Hazards, Vol 20, No.5, pages 251-277, 2002.
"Modeling the La Palma Landslide Tsunami", Charles L. Mader, in Science of Tsunami Hazards, Vol. 19, No. 3, pages 160-180, 2001.
"Volcano Growth and the Evolution of the Island of Hawaii", J.G. Moore and D.A.Clague, in the Geologic Society of America Bulletin, 104, 1992.
Committee members for this report include:
Mr. George Curtis, Hilo, HI (Committee Chairman) 808-963-6670
Dr. Tad Murty, Ottawa, Canada, 613-731-8900
Dr. Laura Kong, Honolulu, HI, 808-532-6422
Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis, Honolulu, HI, 808-943-1150
Dr. Charles L. Mader, Los Alamos, NM, 808-396-9855
and all can comment on this or other tsunami matters.
For information regarding the Tsunami Society and its publications, visit: www.sthjournal.org.
For general and educational material on tsunamis, check: www.tsunami.org.
me and 3 other friends spent the whole night clearing that road of flooded cars,
i get home that morning only to be woken up the next day by my grandma saying a twisters comin,i look outside and the sky is pitch green,and the sirens are goin,and we were pinned inside the trailer so im like "lets get outta here" and grandma's got this whole "god's gonna get us" thing..i tell her "green sky and sirens...that means we got 5 minutes LETS G0!" lucky for us they all hit southwest of us and north of us (one was a F4 i think)
It appears they didn't even have to be deceased in Washington.....It's called "creative voting"....ESV: Extra-Secret-Voters.....Even the government doesn't know they exist until they vote.
Now Ohio at least compared the voters list to the mail delivery lists for the district.....found a few questionable that way.....Good idea.....
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