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Olympia, the Sanctuary of Zeus and venue of the Olympic Games in Ancient Greece, was probably destroyed by tsunamis that reached far inland, and not as previously believed, by earthquakes and river flooding... Paläotsunamis that have taken place over the last 11,000 years along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean. The Olympic-tsunami hypothesis has been put forward due to sediments found in the vicinity of Olympia, which were buried under an 8 metres thick layer of sand and other debris, and only rediscovered around 250 years ago. "The composition and thickness of the sediments we have found, do not fit...

This type of motion is not new, it actually has a name. It is called the Hilina Slump. During the last strong quake in Hawaii, a magnitude 7.2 event on November 29th 1975, this slump slid toward the ocean by about 11 feet. Another temblor, the 7.9 magnitude Hawaii quake of 1868 caused the slump to move as well, resulting in a tsunami with a maximum wave height of about 60 feet. With all respect for the people who are being affected by the current eruption, the way Kilauea lava comes to the surface is rather tame. It crawls slowly...

Big one

A pretty large earthquake has just accompanied the recent volcanic emissions from the Big Island's most interesting dynamic natural display. Stay tuned and alert for more developments.

When volcanic mountains slide into the sea, they trigger tsunamis. How big are these waves, and how far away can they do damage? Ritter Island provides some answers. Early one March morning in 1888, a 4-cubic-kilometer chunk of the Ritter Island volcano collapsed into the Bismarck Sea northeast of New Guinea. This volume of land was about twice that of the Mount St. Helens landslide in 1980, and it is the largest historically recorded tsunami-causing volcanic sector collapse. The ensuing landslide triggered a tsunami tens of meters high. The waves were still 8 meters high when they reached parts of...

The risk of a landslide in the Canary Islands causing a tidal wave (tsunami) able to devastate America's east coast is vastly overstated. That's according to marine geologists studying ancient landslides in the area In typical Canary Island landslides, chunks of land break off in bits, not in one dramatic plunge, they claim. This contradicts previous warnings that an Isle of Man-sized chunk of land could fall off the island of La Palma into the sea, causing a mega-tsunami.

Ship-sinking monster waves revealed by ESA satellites   Rare photo of a rogue wave     21 July 2004  Once dismissed as a nautical myth, freakish ocean waves that rise as tall as ten-storey apartment blocks have been accepted as a leading cause of large ship sinkings. Results from ESA's ERS satellites helped establish the widespread existence of these 'rogue' waves and are now being used to study their origins.  Severe weather has sunk more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 200 metres in length during the last two decades. Rogue waves are believed to be the major...