Posted on 11/29/2006 3:03:09 PM PST by blam
Source: American Geophysical Union
Date: November 28, 2006
Landslide At Mt. Etna Generated A Large Tsunami In The Mediterranean Sea Nearly 8000 Years Ago
Geological evidence indicates that the eastern flanks of Mt. Etna volcano, located on Italy's island of Sicily, suffered at least one large collapse nearly 8,000 years ago.
Pareschi et al. modeled this collapse and discovered that the volume of landslide material, combined with the force of the debris avalanche, would have generated a catastrophic tsunami, which would have impacted all of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Simulations show that the resulting tsunami waves would have destabilized soft marine sediments across the floor of the Ionian Sea.
The authors note that field evidence for this destabilization can be seen in other scientists' accounts of widespread large chaotic deposits of sediments in the Ionain and Sirte Abyssal Plains and tsunami-related deposits called homogenite on local depressions of the Ionian seafloor. They also speculate that this tsunami may have led to the abandonment of a Neolithic village in Israel.
Title: The lost tsunami
Authors: Maria Teresa Pareschi, Enzo Boschi, and Massimiliano Favalli: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Pisa, Italy.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) paper 10.1029/2006GL027790, 2006
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There's a hint in Velikovsky's 'Worlds In Collision' this event took place within historical times. He quotes Strabo, 'The Geography':
"Having recovered his strength Zeus suddenly from heaven riding in a chariot of winged horses, pelted Typhon with thunderbolts...So being again pursued he (Typhon) came to Thrace and in fighting at Mount Haemus he heaved whole mountains...a stream of blood gushed out on the mountain, and they say that from that circumstance the mountain was called Haemus (bloody). And when he started to flee through the Sicilian sea, Zeus cast Mount Etna in Sicily upon him. That is a huge mountain, from which down to this day they say that blasts of fire issue from the thunderbolts that were thrown.'
It's a tsunami on a 12 inch bun.
I have wondered what if this was describing forces of nature, and whether it was speaking of a literal division of some pieces of real estate - land by water?
Algore invented tsunamis.
The MSM fails yet again.
Great photo. Thanks.
Hmmm... The tsunami warning system is getting faster! ;-P
This just goes to show you that bad things happen to the earth on a quite regular basis.
Where was it documented?
I may be wrong but I am wondering if there could possibility have been other volcanic eruptions farther back in the history of the world prior to Etna that were even more devastating. /sarc
Indeed the more chaotic the ancient past, the better to explain why mankind got so little traction for so many thousands of years, despite the excellent brains installed well before 8000 BC.
I would use miles as units for that size tidal wave. It would eliminate confusion in reporting as zeros, houses, cattle, and coastlines are lost in the urgency of the moment. 1/2 mile. That's where the metric system comes up short: 'Did he say millimeters or kilometers?'
bump for later investigation
Wow! Looking at that picture and reading the post just above yours seems to put a lot of myth talk into perspective.
"Where was it documented?"
Good question. Almost every website refers to that 'first recorded eruption' but so far, I've not found one that provides the source.
More images and info:
Etna has the longest record of historic eruptions. The first recorded eruption was in 1500 B.C. Since then Etna has erupted at least 190 times. Most of these eruptions have a volcanic explosivity index of 1 or 2 and activity consists of gently effusion of lava or Strombolian explosions. Large eruptions are rare.
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/img_etna2.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Etna
Diodore's writings indicate that the Sicans, an indigenous people living on the eastern flank of the volcano, were forced by the eruption (and/or the landslide) to migrate to the western part of Sicily. An event of this type can be expected to have caused total destruction and heavy loss of life in the affected areas. Since the "1500 BC" event is the earliest historically recorded eruption of Etna, the volcano entered into the historical record in quite a cataclysmic manner. In the light of earlier studies by Calvari et al. (1998) this event seems to be but the latest episode in a series of sector collapses, as suggested by Guest et al. (1984).
http://www.vulcanoetna.it/it_morfologia_vallebove.php
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