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So I've made several videos already on both tsunamis and natural disasters that have already happened
But I've never made a video about a natural disaster that hasn't happened yet
Tsunamis as I'm sure you know are some of the most devastating forces in nature
But every now and then nature likes to take something that's already
scary and multiplies it
This is where the rare events called mega tsunamis come in and there's one in the future that some scientists are predicting will happen eventually
The generation of mega tsunamis maybe most important to understand in the Atlantic
Mostly because of the large number of active oceanic volcanic islands and the fact that some of these volcanoes are showing early signs of instability
The most infamous of these is located here in the Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa
the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma
It's erupted several times in the past. Most recently in 1949 and again in 1971
But a paper written later in
1999 by a geologist
Named Simon Day was the first to notice that something seemed strange. It appeared to him that the western flank of the volcano was beginning
To become unstable and was in the initial stages of a collapse
Several future papers written about it hypothesized that with each future eruption
This flank would become even more unstable until at some
Uncertain point in the future an eruption would be big enough to cause the entire chunk to come crashing down into the ocean
how big of a chunk would this be? Well, a paper written back in 2005 estimates that it would be between
150 and 500 cubic kilometers worth of rock, which is a lot. In the worst-case scenario of
500 cubic kilometers it would slam into the ocean and create an initial water dome of 900 meters tall
Which is taller than the Burj Khalifa is in Dubai. That would be an incredible sight to see alone
but then according to this paper the really bad stuff happens next. The dome would quickly transform into a wave about
600 metres high and surge westwards at speeds up to
720 km/h about the same speed as a jet aircraft
several hundred meter high
titanic tsunamis will crash on the western shores of the canary islands and shortly after smaller 50 to 100 meter high waves will impact the
african west coast
meanwhile
a solid wave 500 kilometers across
Surges westwards across the Atlantic towards America since the Canary Islands acted like the Jupiter for Europe and took most of the tsunamis blow in
That direction small waves between five and seven meters will impact the shores of Spain and England and caused only minor damage
Finally after traveling for about nine hours
The first part of the wave makes impact in the Americas. After traveling for so long
The tsunami will have lost most of its size
but even still
10 meter high waves will hit the coast of Newfoundland in Canada while larger 15 to 20 meter high waves impact the northern coast of
South America from Brazil to Venezuela unfortunately for Florida though
they will end up taking the brunt of the tsunamis power here 20 to 25 meter high waves will crash across the east coast of
the state and severely damaged cities like Miami and Jacksonville the waves here will be about the same size as the waves of the
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Indonesia
And similar sized 10 to 25 meter high waves will crash across the rest of the US east coast
Which would definitely damage cities like Charleston New York and Boston while all of that sounds pretty horrible
It's very important to take all of this with a grain of salt
This is a worst-case scenario
Based on a scientific paper that itself has received a pretty fair amount of criticism from other
scientists for sounding too alarmist. Mega tsunamis generated from a volcanic collapse like this appear to be common on a
Geological time scale as there is evidence to show that it's happened dozens of times in the Atlantic alone over the past million years
But that's still incredibly uncommon on a human time scale
The only time in recorded human history that a similar event to this has happened so far was in
1888 on Ritter Island in Papua New Guinea when a volcano
Erupted and caused a five cubic kilometer chunk of rock to collapse into the ocean this did cause a relatively large tsunami
15 metres high the damage of the surrounding islands
But it was hardly the gigantic size that could happen in the Cumbre Vieja scenario
Further if the scenario that I just described is the worst-case scenario
It's possible that if the western flank of the island does collapse, it would be significantly less mass
Which would create a significantly smaller tsunami that may not be even capable of crossing the Atlantic. Even if the worst-case scenario
Does happen, it probably won't happen at any point in any of our lifetimes?
It will probably happen several thousand years from now when the eruptions cause the flame to grow even weaker
So realistically you shouldn't have to worry about this ever happening. Although it probably will happen at some point in the future
That's a problem
That future humans will have hopefully figured out by then in the meantime
the only reason you should ever worry about it is of a super villain sets up residence on the island and decides to
Artificially turn it into an island version of the Death Star. If you are an aspiring
Supervillain watching this video though
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