look out east coast.
According to today's Guardian it's only a matter of time before a mega-tsunami hits.
Bill McGuire, the director of the Benfield Grieg Hazard Research Centre at University College London, said a huge chunk of rock, roughly the size of the Isle of Man, was on the brink of breaking off the volcanic island of La Palma in the Canaries.
When - Professor McGuire says it is not a matter of if - the rock plunges into the ocean it will trigger giant waves called mega-tsunamis.
Travelling at speeds of up to 560mph, the huge walls of water will tear across the ocean and hit islands and continents, leaving a trail of destruction.
Mega-tsunami waves are much longer than the ones we are used to.
'When one of these comes in, it keeps on coming for 10 to 15 minutes,' Prof McGuire said.
'It's like a huge wall of water that just keeps coming.'
Apparently, the effect will be pretty damn big:
Between nine and 12 hours after the island collapses, waves between 20 and 50 metres high will have crossed 4,000 miles of ocean to crash into the Caribbean islands and the eastern seaboard of the US and Canada.
Poor Canada.
There's an accompanying article on types of Freaking Huge Natural Disasters.
(Thanks, Kelly!)
In unrelated news, I revised 32 manuscript pages today, finally breaking into the last of the book. Only 76 more to go, and I feel fine. And I have the three chapters in the middle to turn in to the workshop tonight. Yay, rah.
worm "Feed the Tree," Belly
namecheck Mark "California Is Loving This, Right?" Sarvas
Bill McGuire, the director of the Benfield Grieg Hazard Research Centre at University College London, said a huge chunk of rock, roughly the size of the Isle of Man, was on the brink of breaking off the volcanic island of La Palma in the Canaries.
When - Professor McGuire says it is not a matter of if - the rock plunges into the ocean it will trigger giant waves called mega-tsunamis.
Travelling at speeds of up to 560mph, the huge walls of water will tear across the ocean and hit islands and continents, leaving a trail of destruction.
Mega-tsunami waves are much longer than the ones we are used to.
'When one of these comes in, it keeps on coming for 10 to 15 minutes,' Prof McGuire said.
'It's like a huge wall of water that just keeps coming.'
Apparently, the effect will be pretty damn big:
Between nine and 12 hours after the island collapses, waves between 20 and 50 metres high will have crossed 4,000 miles of ocean to crash into the Caribbean islands and the eastern seaboard of the US and Canada.
Poor Canada.
There's an accompanying article on types of Freaking Huge Natural Disasters.
(Thanks, Kelly!)
In unrelated news, I revised 32 manuscript pages today, finally breaking into the last of the book. Only 76 more to go, and I feel fine. And I have the three chapters in the middle to turn in to the workshop tonight. Yay, rah.
worm "Feed the Tree," Belly
namecheck Mark "California Is Loving This, Right?" Sarvas
posted by Gwenda @ 8/12/2004 05:47:00 PM
2 Comments:
At 7:41 PM ,
Anonymous said...
You know, part of the reason I moved out to the East Coast was to get some real weather. Apparently you need to watch what you wish for.
In the last year I've seen everything from a hurricane to a single day when we got more than 3 feet of snow (which means drifts over 10 feet in places!).
A mega-tsunami would round out the pack nicely.
Mr. Mc
At 7:59 PM ,
Anonymous said...
Ooh. I have dreams like that sometimes, actually. Being out on a beach somewhere and this enormous wall of water is heading towards us.
--Susan
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