Cumbre Vieja USA ON TSUNAMI ALERT!

A tsunami is a wave produced by a disturbance that displaces a large mass of water - usually a result of geologic (under the ground) activities such as earthquakes, volcanoes, underwater landslides, or meteor strikes. After such a disturbance, displaced water travels outward from its site of origin as a series of unusually large waves at great speeds. What is a tsunami?

What causes a Tsunami? - 1. Undersea Earthquake

What causes Tsunami? - 2. Landslide into the sea

A bit like...

Tsunami caused by landslide

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In general, most tsunamis range from several centimeters to tens of meters. Sometimes they are only centimetres high and hardly noticeable. On the other extreme is the mega-tsunami, which can reach heights of several hundred meters. How big can tsunamis get?

The Canary Islands are a volcanic island-arc chain located in the Atlantic Ocean. La Palma is one of the most volcanically active of the islands. It has 3 large volcanoes on it. It is home to the most active volcano of the Canaries, Cumbre Vieja, which last erupted in 1949 and It is here that there is a possible ticking time bomb - large tsunami creation in the Atlantic Ocean. Cumbre Vieja

The west side (flank) of the Cumbre Vieja volcano may experience catastrophic failure during a future eruption, resulting in a landslide of a block of km in width and km long into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Geographers suggests that such an event could trigger a massive mega-tsunami hundreds of meters in height that would travel quickly in westerly direction across the Atlantic ocean. Within 9 hours, an estimated meter wave could reach the US east coast. Cumbre Vieja

Tsunami energy travelling across the ocean.

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