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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?)"
Yes, clearly. Americans need to be afraid of MORE things. Since cancer, terrorism, guns, murder, disease, nuclear (nuk-you-lar) war, security levels blue through hot pink, killer bees, and France aren't scary enough.
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.
I believe they thought of doing mining (as in for minerals, not data) in the 1950's and 1960's using nuclear explosives.
While this was a great incomplete theory, it left out the crucial detail of environmental damage and subsequent release of radiation to the ore, the slag, and the mined-out areas. Of course, in that day-in-age it wasn't well known what the long term effects of radioactive byproducts of nuclear explosions were.
There's also the crucial political perspective of Eisenhower's use of 'Atoms for Peace' to give political cover to the Atomic Energy Commission's mandate / goals of limiting proliferation. Basically, we promised the world that if they would NOT develop nuke bombs, we would give them reactors for free power. I am not "up" on the issue, I'd defer to some Ph.D.'s who do nonproliferation studies for a living. However, I'd wager there's a tradeoff between the lives saved by not having too many nukes out there vs. the lives lost in long term radiation exposure due to waste from 3rd world reactors.
Regardless, this builds up to the idea that if you're a terrorist, and you're going to try to set off a volcano, you're going to need lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of conventional explosives, or one medium- to large-sized nuclear bomb. And, if you have a medium to large nuke, you're not going to use it on an off-the-wall gambit like an underwater or underground explosion.
Geologists, please comment on any demonstrated effects of the use of explosives in the triggering of volcanic eruptions (if any) ?? I would suspect very few experiments, am I right?
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
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..
You never can be sure enough! right?
- Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~ward/papers/La_Palma_grl.p df
I am neither insensitive nor a clod!
Let's look at the source:
On the front page of the Benfield Grieg Hazard Research Centre web site is this interesting statement:
<sarcasm>Why would an insurance company post such an article?</sarcasm>
Before the mysterious evildoer can collapse the rock formation, thus triggering the tsunami that will wipe out life as we know it, a slightly whiny hero and his band of friends will come to our rescue.
:(
I only hope they're at a high enough level by the time they reach the overlord.
These are the models you seek.
The problem here is that the rock goes down and displaces water, which comes up. The potential energy of the falling rock is partially converted into kinetic energy of the water, which becomes a tsunami when it hits the surface. You are not going to get rid of this energy by fragmenting the rock. Some tsunamis appear to have been caused by mudslides, and it's hard to get any more fragmented than mud.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
The reason this would be big is because the wave, as it approaches the coast, would expand upward as the depth decreases. The energy dissipation follows wave form rules, but as in any system, the energy involved doesn't go away. So, as the water gets shallow, the wave would grow up. Interesting to note that there would be no 300 foot wave in deep water, but the wave form itself would still exist and be travelling at a high rate of speed despite being essentially invisible.
As a side note, Dr. No, GoldFinger, and Dr. Evil all investigated this and decided it wasn't grand enough for a take over the world plot. Not reproducible, like a laser or nuclear weapon, and possibly defensible (blow up the rock before it slides?).
Bah
Karl Marx, to my knowledge, never called for the imprisonment, execution, and/or disappearance of millions who chose not to toe the line. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and others chose those policies.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Go to volcanic island. Locate large slipping rock. Make gravel and dispose of gradually filling pot holes in Italian roads and New York's city streets.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
tidal wave
n.
The swell or crest of surface ocean water created by the tides.
tsunami
n.
A very large ocean wave caused by an underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption.
*ahem*
What happens when two waves meet, and cross? When the peaks cross you get a wave with a height that is the sum of the waves. When the troughs cross you get a trough with a depth that is the sum. When the peak of one crosses the trough of the other they cancel out temporarily .
But, once they have crossed, they go merrily on their way as if nothing had happened.
So you explode a missile in the path of the big wave? All you have done is add a second big wave to worry about. That doesn't sound like such a good idea to me.
Is there some way to break the big slab into smaller peices? Let them drop into the ocean one at a time?
How about building a coffer dam right under where we expect the slab to fall, and then pumping out all the water? No water, no big wave.
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?