Huge US tsunami hazard

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.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Given recent events in Asia = this is quite concerning , as this WILL happen one day

Mod Edit: Trimmed down quote and placed in box

[edit on 12/27/04 by FredT]

One island is a volcano wich because of how it is formed has already Sliped 6 feet or so about half the volcano is ready to land slide into the ocean and can happen anytime now the first slip accored back in 1964 and if it had not stoped this post wouldent be here.
when it finly slides a wall of water from new england down to florida probly 20 25 feet high .

Although quakes can trigger lanslides these are separate events from earthquakes, these happen on steep sloped volcanic islands.
Also La Palma is far from bigger tectonic boundaries meaning small propability for quakes.
So hope that volcanic activity in Canary Islands stays low because eruption with accompanying quakes might trigger collapse of that part of island.

Geological evidence suggests that during a future
eruption, Cumbre Vieja Volcano on the Island of La Palma
may experience a catastrophic failure of its west flank, dropping
150 to 500 km3 of rock into the sea.
...
Lateral collapses of oceanic island volcanoes rank amongst
the most spectacular natural events on Earth. Although no
such lateral collapse punctuates the historical past, residual
debris found on the seafloor evidence their abundance in recent
geological time. Moore (1964) first identified the remains
of lateral collapses off the flanks of Hawaii. Since then,
dozens have been recognized adjacent to island volcanoes in
nearly every ocean (Moore et al. 1994; Keating and McGuire,
2000). These observations constrain not only the geography
and frequency of lateral collapses, but also their magnitude
(up to 5000 km3 of material), extent (to 300 km length) and
ferocity (underwater speeds to 140 m/s).

www.es.ucsc.edu...

BTW, landslide deposit map of Canary Islands looks very nice... looks like lanslides have had big effect to shape of islands.

The study looks awfully realistic How does one stop such violence?

Looking at the wavemap I noticed that small parts of Florida are somewhat protected because they have islands in front of them that take the big hit.

Maybe it would make sense to create more artificial islands near the coast of florida (at places where it's already reasonably shallow) and build some wavebreakers on top of the island....These islands could be designed to have additional economical value, but permanent housing should be very limited...

Another idea that i just got is the "floating trenches" or floating gutters made out of plastic, essentially large halfpipes with a roof that can be opened or closed kept stationary with anchors, if a tsunami builds up and heads for the coast, the roof opens, exposing the deep halfpipe absorbing a large part of the wave. the halfpipe will be sunk by this however and other waves might follow, so you would need a serie of 2-3 halfpipes to wheather the storm...


[edit on 27-12-2004 by Countermeasures]

Originally posted by Simcity4Rushour
One island is a volcano wich because of how it is formed has already Sliped 6 feet or so about half the volcano is ready to land slide into the ocean and can happen anytime now the first slip accored back in 1964 and if it had not stoped this post wouldent be here.
when it finly slides a wall of water from new england down to florida probly 20 25 feet high .

I saw a programme on this subject about a year ago. This suggested that the wave that would hit the eastern coast of the US would be much, much bigger than 25 feet. This programme was estimating something like 100+foot. By the time it got to the south coast of the UK it would still be something like 30 foot high.

This was thought to be the case but is no longer.

The work by the geologiss who has worked on the canary islands volcano is now believed to be incorrect. Yes the flank of the volcano is unstable, but it is unlikely that it will all give way and fall into the sea at the same time. It is more likely that it will fall in small pieces which will not be sufficient enough to cause a major tidal wave.

Originally posted by Countermeasures
The study looks awfully realistic

How does one stop such violence?

Looking at the wavemap I noticed that small parts of Florida are somewhat protected because they have islands in front of them that take the big hit.

Some artificial islands wouldn't be enough, you would have to set up whole mountain range literally.
Remember that it's whole ocean from surface to bottom which is "sloshing" when normal waves consist only from surface water.

Interesting find, It's scary to think that something like that might occur.

There was an incident at a place called Lituya bay in Alaska. A landslide resulted in a wave 520 meters high. Imagine that but a 20 times bigger and more powerful.

Lituya Bay Tsunami

The above is a report in Pdf format.

It makes very scary reading indeed.

[edit on 27-12-2004 by Janus]

Originally posted by Janus
There was an incident at a place called Lituya bay in Alaska. A landslide resulted in a wave 520 meters high. Imagine that but a 20 times bigger and more powerful.

Actually that was more complicated event.
Wave itself propably wasn't that high and it "climbed" to that altitude because of its high speed and fact that there just wasn't any space where water could have gone forcing it to climb up surrounding mountainsides.
Also lanslide happened in same bay meaning all energy of that wave was "spent" in very small space.

The rockslide occurred along the eastern wall of the Gilbert Inlet (see figure above). The mass of rock striking the surface of the bay created a giant splash, which sent water surging to a height of 1720 feet (see figure above) across the point opposite the inlet...
Eyewitness accounts from the few unfortunate boaters who happened to be anchored in the bay for night, state that the wave was at least 100 feet tall at its maximum height near the head of the bay.

www.usc.edu...

Still a wave of 100 feet tall has an awesome amount of power, i read that the wave was so powerful it lifted the front of the Glacier. It was in the link i posted i think.

I remember hearing a story about that on TV. Someone claimed to be in a boat on top of the wave and looking down at tree tops below. I found a site that mentions the potential for some of these mega-tsunamis.
www.bbc.co.uk...

I should add that on this thread here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
this same discussion was discussed and it sounds like the threat is not quite as serious as the folks on TV made it appear to be.

However we shouldn't take our safety and security for granted because tidal waves will happen from either earthquakes, landslides, and/or asteroid or comet impacts. A small asteroid or small comet big enough to create a tidal wave but not big enough to be a planet killer I believe is much more likely than something we can't do anything about in my opinion.
I'm just wondering if there is anything we can do to prepare and warn people in coastal areas or perhaps even farther inland of impending massive tidal waves. Would our governments prefer to not warn us if they knew but thought it would be more of a disaster to have many millions of homeless starving people to deal with? I'm just thinking of what would happen if a massive tidal wave occurred in the Atlantic Ocean and what kind of warning would we get.


[edit on 2-1-2005 by orionthehunter]