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Expert Warns Of Giant Tidal Wave
Kieckerjan writes "Forget about asteroids and start worrying about the unassuming Cumbre Vieja volcano. According to prof. Bill McGuire of the Benfield Grieg Hazard Research Centre, if this mountain erupts, it could cause a tidal wave that would wipe out America's east coast. Google news has the same story over and over again. (This makes you wonder: how much would it take to trigger an eruption for one bent on destruction?)"
I remember seeing something about this (or something similar at least) in a documentary about tidal waves.
Seemingly a particular cliff (which could very well be the volcano), if it were to fall into the sea, would cause a tidal wave large enough to take out New York (and would be in line with taking out New York).
A few properly set explosives, and New Yorkers would have a few hours warning with no way to stop it.
The particular documentary showed evidence of such tidal waves occuring where there had been rock slides of this sort. Volcano isn't actually necessary, but would give a large tidal wave (hence the east coast of the US would be affected).
I think coming up with a method is dispersing such a tidal wave before it hits the coast would be the best way to counteract this. However, how, exactly, do you stop a large tidal wave in the middle of the Atlantic ocean?
T.
If the problem is a large rock that could fall into the sea if the volcano erupted - wouldnt the obvious solution be to break up / get rid of / move / destroy said rock before such an event happens?
We move mountains to build highways, so I don't see that this would be technologically unrealistic.
Look those two keywords up on Google. You will find a new reason to be nervous.
Yellowstone erupts on a 640,000 cycle, give or take a few ten thousand years.
Last time Yellowstone blew it buried Nebraska under six feet of ash. Anyone within a 600 mile radius would die within minutes.
It's about 20,000 years overdue to erupt.
Wouldn't it be possible to plant (underwater) explosives on the rock, with velocity sensors on them, such that if the rock began moving at too fast a rate (say, greater than 5 mph), hundreds of underwater explosives start detonating it into shreds? I know demolitions is a very precise science these days. Cleverly mounted and directed explosions (of course, it would take several thousand tons)... But if you could split it such that it creates a somewhat negative movement of waves, seems as though it would work. I.E., split it in half north to south, then east to west, then the remaining pieces split in half and so on.
Just an idea..
How tall did the article say this superwave might be? Ah. Maybe 300 feet -- at the Canary Island. How tall will it be when it strikes New York, Boston, Charleston, Savanah, Miami? Let's say 90 feet -- 30 yards.
Well, the wavelength of a wave is something like ten times its height. So, how large is the area where the natural superwave, and your artifical superwave cancel one another out? Do you think New Yorkers would thank you if you preserved the Battery, but the rest of New York got twice the damage?
Oh wait. A quarter of an hour later the battery is hit by the 20 yard wave you set off to protect Boston. And then it gets hits by the remains of the other big waves you set off.
Following World War 2 the USN experimented with the effects of an underwater explosions on fleets of Naval vessels. That was the fate of the Prinz Eugen, the consort to the Bismark. Clips of those explosions are public. You may have seen them. How tall would you say the wave created by those explosions were?
My estimate? Less than ten yards.
Those would have been Hiroshima scale bombs -- 10 kilotons. So, how big a blast would be required to make a wave just twice as tall? Remember, the volume of water in a wave is the cube of the dimensions. So, wouldn't a wave twice as tall require 16 times the blast energy? By my naive calculations your counter-waves would each require blasts of tens of megatons.
The radiation burden of this many explosions would rival that of a Nuclear War.
Say, how big is this slab, anyhow? And where did anyone get the idea it would make a 300 foot wave?