This is all pretty scary stuff. We have become used to what seems a stable planet, but it's only stable on the short run. We simply haven't been tracking its hick-ups long enough to realize how insecure the world is. --- On Sun, 3/20/11, David Rankin <David@rankinstudio.com> wrote:
From: David Rankin <David@rankinstudio.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Atlantic Immune to Tsunamis? To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Sunday, March 20, 2011, 10:09 PM There is a subduction zone in the Atlantic that has a recorded history of producing tsunamis.
"
While most of the Atlantic is free from subduction zones, there is a significant one in the southern Caribbean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_Trench
This is a fault similar to the one off the coast of Japan - which means if it ruptured right and big enough, a significant tsunami could hit the Atlantic.
"
David
On 3/20/11 12:57 PM, Joe Bauman wrote:
I heard something on CNN today about the size of earthquakes; apparently the biggest hit subduction zones, where a crustal plate is slipping under another, as with the big Japanese quake. Does the Atlantic have subduction zones? Thanks, Joe
--- On Sat, 3/19/11, erikhansen@thebluezone.net<erikhansen@thebluezone.net> wrote:
From: erikhansen@thebluezone.net<erikhansen@thebluezone.net> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Atlantic Immune to Tsunamis? To: "Utah Astronomy"<utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Saturday, March 19, 2011, 12:40 PM
The eastern seabed is very
steep, they elude to that being unpredictable. There is some relatively shallow water in the middle of the Atlantic perhaps that will consume some of the energy. I thought the biggest disagreement was about how much water would be displaced. IE wether it happened at once from one quake or from several quakes. It is a huge chunk if it happens at once.
One thing is for sure even of 20 meter wave would devastate Florida.
There are other models that show that a La Palma event would not be as
devastating as once thought:
http://www.ngi.no/en/News-archive/News/PhD-in-Numerical-modelling-of-tsunami...
and some leading tsunami and mega-tsunami scientists
disagree that any
large or mega-tsunami would come out of La Palma:
http://www.arizonaenergy.org/WaterEnergy/What%20is%20a%20mega-tsunami%20and%...
From this article http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:e8MugMtbub4J:www.lapalma-tsunami.c... looks like the US would only receive a wave about 3
meter's high.
Still power, still big enough to cause some major damage but
not the 100m high
wave that was talked about in the Discovery
presentation on this subject.
That material btw, was presented in the Discovery show
before it was
released to the scientific community and before proper
modeling was done.
Europe and Africa would receive waves less than 10m
high. Again, damaging
and big enough to penetrate well inland like the 2004
Indian Ocean the
2011 Japan Tsunami's did, and lives and property are lost,
but not that
gigantic wave. Finally, no large mega-tsunami has been recorded
in the Atlantic or
the Pacific Oceans related to a flank collapse.
The collapse of Krakatau
and Santorin caused devastating and catastrophic waves
locally, but those
waves never spread out and propagate to distant shores
like an earthquake
generated tsunami does. Scientific debate will
continue on this as well it
should and we'll see where the evidence leads.
For now, I'll go with the
less damaging based on past evidence and current
modeling. I may have to,
when I have time, compare the estimates here of
La Palma to what was
misplaced when Krakatau collapsed.
For general info on Tsunami:
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tsunami/resource/31103.html
On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 11:26 AM,<erikhansen@thebluezone.net> wrote:
I recall a story about the Canary Islands El
Hierro and La Palma. EL
Heirro had a major landslide that created its
crescent shape, this
landslide was believed to have caused a huge
tsunami that reached the
east coast of the US with huge waves.
La Palma has a similar fault line that bisects the
island. One theory is
that is if this fault goes, half of the island
would fall into the sea
causing a Tsunami that would be several hundred
meters in height as it
hits the eastern US. Seems geologists are somewhat
split, some think the
Island will spilt in half over a long period of
time, some think it will
happen in one catastrophic event.
The evidence at El Hierro seems to suggest it will
happen all at once.
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