ˇ§Super Tsunamiˇ¨

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/archive/2002/Nov/19-29.html

 

Landslide-generated tsunami in Lituya Bay, Alaska, 1958

 [J.F. Lander and P.A. Lockridge, ˇ§United States Tsunamisˇ¨, Publication 41-2, U.S. Department of Commerce 1989]

Volcano in La Palma, last erupted in 1949, western flank unstable

ˇ§But governments, which change every 4/5 years, are not taking this threat seriously.  A monitoring station equipped to look deep into the heart of the mountain and spot the early signs of an eruption might cost $1m.

In comparison, the US was spending $4m a year scouring the skies for kilometre-sized asteroids.ˇ¨

W. McGuire, director of  Benfield Grieg Hazard Research Centre at University College London
 

 

 

 

 

Credit   http://es.ucsc.edu/~ward/

Credits for images below

The moon:      Michael Oates   

www.ph.u-net.com/mavica/moon

http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/age-maps

Comet 1993e: H.A. Weaver, T.E. Smith (Space Telescope Sci. Inst.), J.T. Trauger, R.W. Evans (Jet Propulsion Lab.), and NASA

50,000 years ago

from  NASA  --  ˇ§StarChildˇ¨ A Learning Center for Young Astronomers

NEOs  [Near Earth Objects]  close approaching asteroids and short-period comets

ECOs  [Earth-Crossing-Objects]  NEOs with orbits that intersect the Earth's orbit

Kuiper belt, regularly perturbed by Jupiter, Planet X?;  Oort Cloud, perturbed by ?

Spacewatch, Lunar and Planetary Lab, Univ of Arizona

upper right longer trail: 1994 GK;   lower left shorter trail: 1994 GL

The Earth's atmosphere protects us from NEOs < 40 m in diameter, or impact energy < 10 megatons   [Hiroshima: 10 kilotons];

80 m: 100 megatons, leaving a 1-km crater [previous page];

400 m: 10,000 megatons (= energy of all of the nuclear weapons in the world detonated in one go), 10-km crater;

2 km: a million megatons, ˇ§nuclear winterˇ¨;

10 km: a hundred million megatons  [next page]                                  3D

1908, Tunguska River, Siberia

Vladislav Batenkov, Professor of Phys. Chem., Altay State University

http://science.pravda.ru/science/2002/6/20/56/2229_meteorit.htm

H and O produced by thermal decomposition of an ice comet fragment

2D

Gulf of Mexico     ? ECO impact event 65 Myr ago (iridium ˇK)

until their demise, the dinosaurs had survived for 160 Myr; cf. homo sapien

movie from       www.nearearthobjects.co.uk/virtualcrater.cfm