One more thing to worry about:
LONDON (Reuters) - The bad news is tens of millions of people along the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada may drown if the slow slippage of a volcano off north Africa becomes a cataclysmic collapse.But the good news is the world is not likely to be destroyed by an asteroid any time soon.
Scientist Bill McGuire told a news conference on natural disasters on Monday that some time in the next few thousand years the western flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma will collapse, sending walls of water 100 meters high racing across the Atlantic.
Via kottke.org
Comments (2)
08/11/2004 12:52:57 AM
Nothing to fear but fear itself? And maybe the training we give our 'scientists'. But I wouldn't necessarily move to Morocco.
This tidal wave just doesn't pass the sniff test. Without bothering with the exact maths, McGuire is trying to get us to believe that this displacement wave will present tens of metres of water at a diameter of (let's round it off) a thousand kilometers? Is he not familiar with the physics? Or am I this naive?
Generally, as I am led to understand these things, the wave has a relatively low effect in the open ocean (and the energy is of course dissipated as the diameter of the wave grows) until it hits the continental shelf and gets, well, pushed up. To have that much energy as it hits the continental shelf, I kinda think the originating event has to be closer than the other side of the Atlantic.
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Posted by Paul | September 15, 2008 2:02 PM
Posted on September 15, 2008 14:02
08/11/2004 11:08:03 PM
Well, I'm not qualified to speak on the science involved. However, it would be a massive amount of rock abruptly dumped into the ocean, probably comparable to a major asteroid hit.
Obviously the asteroid would strike with more velocity, but the total kinetic effect might be similar.
If you're interested, here's a simulation done by the University of Arizona, where you can plug in some numbers to see what the effects of a big asteroid are.
Posted by gnotalex | September 16, 2008 1:22 PM
Posted on September 16, 2008 13:22