Possibility of a tsunami in the Atlantic basin...

[Squatch]

This is some scary stuff. I live at an elevation of 4 feet (that's four feet) msl. A tsunami triggered by the collapse of La Palma island in the canaries would result in waves in excess of 50 meters on the eastern seaboard of the US.

http://www.benfieldhrc.org/CentreNews/press%20releases/tsunami.htm

[soothsayer]

1. just wait until the coming pole shift!

That'll rock yer world. literally and figuratively.

[AG78]

6. That one I'm waiting for

What? The North Pole is now the South Pole? Florida now north of New York? We'll be upside down?

The confusion on that one would be worth it, since up and down, north and south, don't exist in space.

[Squatch]

9. It would have the biggest impact on technology.

[Old and In the Way]

11. Would transformers and power supplies be affected?

[Squatch]

13. No. Salmon and arctic terns would be screwed, tho.

[soothsayer]

23. In one of the models, we stay at the same latitude. The north pole

would be in South Africa, I think, but we kind of end up in the same relative position.

[MsTryska]

15. Oh man......

why'd ya have to bring the pole reversal up?



my high school freshamn year earth science teacher scared bejesus out of me with that one. (i'm particularly susceptible to fear of worldwide cataclysm tho)

[TheDebbieDee]

18. But is the pole shift thing something that could happen.....

at any time or is it thousands of years in the distance?

[Squatch]

19. Depends on what you mean by "pole shift"

An axial shift, in which the tectonic plates themselves move around, as a whole, around the earth's axis would be bad.

A magnetic shift would have an impact on technology (like compasses, navigation, etc) that rely on poles and animals' (like homing insects, birds, and fish) migration.

Magnetic pole shifts have happened thousands of times in the past and are reflected in the geologic record.

[MsTryska]

20. Basically what Squatch said....

my earth science teacher showed us an example of the geological record of magnetic pole reversals - you can tell when they happened by the direction of crystal growth within the seperate layers.


Basically he said we were due for one, judging by the approximate depth of those layers (there's thousands of years between them).


as for tectonic shifts, we could be setting up for one now, for all i know.

[BeTheChange]

22. I find myself obsessively staring at my compass.

Reading the news can make you crazy.

[tk2kewl]

2. I live at about the same elev.

but my house is build up to about 8 ft.

I am assuming that having a barrier island between me and the atlantic would mitigate most of the dammage, no? I suppose we would get flooding but no velocity impact.

[JHB]

8. Too big to say for sure, but...

...but if you're facing a 20-50 meter wave, that may mean you just get the rampaging foam, not the nice neat pipeline-curl.

The day that puppy lets loose, it's going to suck for a lot of people.

And the same thing could happen in the Pacific due to underwater landslides around Hawaii.

[Squatch]

10. I live 2 miles from a private airport. I believe I would be stealing

a plane that day. :evilgrin:

[havocmom]

3. where I live, there used to be a shallow sea with sea & coastal life

including giant sequoias! I live in Eastern Montana where there are almost no trees now. There are areas around here that look more like the moon than a place which once supported semi-tropical life!

It is sorta silly to think real estate is forever. Conditions change - sometimes rather drastically and faster than we would like. Just use your head about where you make your nest and keep in the back of your mind that ALL conditions are temporary.

[oneighty]

4. But I have a deed!

And a title to my land. It is mine all mine forever and ever!

180

This land is my land.

[illflem]

5. Wasn't it the Bible

or some other source that said only a person without commitment builds a house on sand.
That would apply to most ocean front and riverside properties...

[Squatch]

7. My house is built on freaking clay. It's hell to drain the yard

after a good rain, so parts of the lawn look like swamp for a couple days after a storm.

[illflem]

12. Yes, but at least it doesn't wash away from under the foundation

leaving your house to float away in a flood.

[Tinoire]

14. US also faces tsunami threat (article)

US also faces tsunami threat


Paris - Cities on the US East Coast and in the Caribbean could be wrecked by a tsunami unleashed by the collapse of a volcanic island in the eastern Atlantic, British scientists believe.

A massive chunk of La Palma, the most volcanically active island in the Canaries archipelago, is unstable, says Simon Day, of the Benfield Grieg Hazard Research Centre at University College London.

He calculates that its flank could collapse the next time the volcano, Cumbre Vieja, erupts.

If so, that would send a dome-shaped wall of water up to 100 metres high racing across the Atlantic at 800 kilometres per hour, hitting the western coast of Africa and southern coast of England within a few hours.

Some eight hours after the collapse, the US East Coast and Caribbean would bear the brunt.

Cities from Miami to New York would get swamped by waves up to 50 metres high, capable of surging up to 20 kilometres inland, according to Day's research.

(snip)

http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1640239,00.html

[Liberty Belle]

16. Glad I live on a granite mountain.

Maybe we'll have ocean-view property by the time this is over. We learned our lesson at our previous house on a low-lying lot that flooded.

[MsTryska]

21. Yeah i've been looking on the bright side of worldwide cataclysm

myself. It would make Atlanta a coastal city. Especially if the Mississippi flooded it's banks too.

[Maine-ah]

17. I guess

that is one way for me to finally have waterfront property! :silly: