You don't need all the ice to melt to have an interesting flood. In 1949 there was an
eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa,
it created a huge fissure across the western side of the island that is gradually getting
wider. Someday it will break off and when it does 500 billion tons of rock will fall
two and a half miles to the bottom of the sea. The bad news is that this will create a wave
2,100 feet high moving at 450 mph, the good news is that by the time this wall of water
reaches the east coast of Canada and the USA 8 hours later it will only be 160 feet high,
so it will only go inland on average about 12 miles. There is pretty good evidence that this
sort of thing happened before, 120 thousand years ago a large part El Hierro also in the
Canary islands fell into the sea, this may explain puzzling chevron shaped ridges and
2000 ton boulders in odd places in the Bahamas. There is also a fissure on the
big island of Hawaii that will do a similar job on the Pacific someday.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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