Giant wave could threaten US

BBC ^ | 10 August 2004

[FormerACLUmember]

I tried to post an October 10 article from the Independent in the UK with the latest findings, but some totalitarian editor there apparently formally complained to Free Republic, and therefore no postings are permitted from the Independent. So much for the free exchange of ideas. Instead I am posting an earlier report (from the BBC website) on research into the vast unstable flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma. The new research is at:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=549820

Please do not post from the Independent. I do not know how valid all this research is, I see every reason to set up an early warning system as recommended by Professor Bill McGuire in the new report.

[FormerACLUmember]

October 10 = August 10

[Recovering_Democrat]

This is obviously George Bush's fault.

[Cold Heat]

Hey! I get to say it first!

We are dooomed!

[fhayek]

John Kerry has a secret plan that will save us.

[glasseye]

We're all gonna die.....well someday anyway......*grin

[per loin]

By rough estimate, NY is about twice as far from the Canaries as London. Would London be destroyed in time to give NY lots of warning?

[boomop1]

Behold He comes riding on a wave shinning like the sun, at the trumpet call.

[FormerACLUmember]

Yes it is all the fault of those evil republicans!!

[Palladin]

When's the movie?

[denydenydeny]

I imagine that terrorists are already doing theoretical work on seeing if the flank slide could be artificially triggered by a large explosion. That's the first thing that came to mind.

[GeronL]

Wouldn't the wave go in all directions??

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Sounds like what happens whenever Michael Moore sits down.

[corkoman]

Wouldn't the wave go in all directions??

Yes and the Bahamas would take the brunt and spare south florida.

[Born in a Rage]

Ich, the thought of being swallowed up by a tidal wave is horrifying. I've had nightmares about that very thing.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

"Wouldn't the wave go in all directions?"

They should call it the Kerry Wave.

[muawiyah]

650 metres!

Most likely the resultant wave would be so massive, it would literally be unable to propagate itself in adjacent waters. As a consequence a soliton would be created. It would head off across the ocean, with undiminished height and mass, to totally devastate the shoreline opposite.

Most likely the collapse of the Antarctic as the last glaciation of the current Ice Age came to an end, produced many such solitons, or maybe even one very large soliton in a catastrophic collapse.

This is why there are no major works of man older than that time anywhere that we know of.

[FormerACLUmember]

By rough estimate, NY is about twice as far from the Canaries as London. Would London be destroyed in time to give NY lots of warning?

Yes and no. A smaller version of the tsunami would reach the UK first. The wave front, as I read it, gets greatly dissipated by the European Coast, the English Channel, the Thames Estuary, etc., so would not be as severe. Also I think the disintigrated flank of the volcano faces the East Coast of the US, so we would bear the full brunt of the mega-tsunami.

[vger]

Hey I heard about this last year on TLC's show about tsunamis. So I get to say it first "We're all doomed!!!"

[nmh]

"Dr Simon Day, of the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at University College London, UK, BELIEVES one flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma, in the Canaries archipelago, is UNSTABLE and COULD plunge into the ocean."

The weasel words, believes and could are not something I get all in an uproar over.