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. On 3/19/11 1:02 PM, erikhansen@thebluezone.net wrote:
I see these problems with their "facts".
1)The El Hierro event is believed to have caused a mega tsunami although not in "recorded history". Recorded history is a short time period, the time period humans have habited the earth is very short.
2)"Cumbre Vieja" not expected to erupt again" file that under famous last words. They do say it is still active, seems contradictory. Can't an active volcano erupt? The fault line is deep there, seems a catastrophic event is possible, however someone feels it is unlikely.
Erik
Below is what the scientists committee claim as facts
"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."
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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