BTT
Some interesting reading - a partial paper from
(©) Casey Research, Inc. 2004.
"... There is a strong possibility, the scientists warned, that the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma, one of the Canary islands off the North African coast, could erupt with such force that it would virtually split the island in two. That would cause a tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean of such force that tidal waves up to 160 feet high would strike the North American East Coast, destroying large parts of Boston, New York, and Miami. “Following an eruption in 1949, scientists found a fracture running through the western side of the volcano,” states an article in last week’s Republican. “The land mass—a half trillion tons of rock—appeared to have slipped 13 feet toward the sea during the eruption, but friction apparently stopped the slide.”
A new eruption, warns the team from University College London, could cause the entire land mass to slide into the sea, creating the feared mega-tsunami. J. Michael Rhodes, a volcanologist at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is skeptical. He says there is no way to predict if and when such a landslide will occur—and what effect it would have. “[It] really depends on how big the landslide is and how rapidly it moves. It also depends on whether the land slides all at once or whether it goes in pieces. And there is no way of knowing that,” he told the Republican.
Then there is America’s pending super-volcano in Yellowstone National Park. In 2004, it showed an alarming rise in sulfuric gases and water temperature, killing fish and wildlife and causing park rangers to close some sites to tourism. When (note, we didn’t say “if”) a mega-eruption happens, say scientists such as Bill McGuire, professor of geohazards at the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at University College London, “the explosion would be the loudest noise heard by man for 75,000 years.” Falling ash, lava flows and the sheer blow of the eruption would eradicate all life within a radius of a thousand kilometers, according to McGuire.
Or in the New Madrid zone, for example. This earthquake-prone fault runs through parts of Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas. The three earthquakes—each an estimated 8.0 or higher on the Richter scale—that occurred in 1811 and 1812 near New Madrid, MO are among the Great Earthquakes of known history and affected the topography more than any other earthquake in North America. Large pieces of land sank into the earth, new lakes were formed, the course of the Mississippi river was changed… so strong were the quakes that they reportedly rung church bells in New England. Casualties were few, however, since at that time, the Mississippi river valley was sparsely settled. A similar earthquake today would cost hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of lives.
Then there is the fault associated with the meeting of the African and European tectonic plates that run through the British island of Gibraltar. Some earth scientists forecast that this is the one most likely to go, triggering a massive tsunami that would devastate the coast of Portugal—as it did in 1755 when an estimated 100,000 people were killed by the disaster. ..."
Mudrat :shock:
Maybe MN ISN'T such a bad place after all?!?!?!
