Scientist warns of Atlantic tsunami

McGuire, whose career as a geologist has led him to study some of the greatest natural cataclysms from history while pondering what disasters lie in wait for humanity in the near and distant future, has been warning of an Atlantic Ocean tsunami for years.
It is likely to be set off by the collapse of a Canary Islands volcano into the sea. When it occurs, McGuire says the enormous chunk of volcanic rock — about the size of the Isle of Man — will generate a tsunami likely to crest at 50 meters high, which will sweep across the Atlantic and batter the Caribbean and U.S. coastline.
Other experts in the natural disaster field of study have poured cold water on McGuire’s theory, which he admits is a worse-case scenario. But he is adamant that governments should prepare for such disasters, thankfully rare though they may be, and he says these threats are far more deadly when they do occur than anything any terror group can come up with.
“If you’re planning for any future disaster, you’re not going to consider the least disastrous scenario, you’re going to consider the most,” McGuire told reporters last week, responding to the events in Asia.
Geologists have found boulders from the Canary Islands 20 meters above the current sea line in the Bahamas. This is clear indication for McGuire that catastrophic tsunamis have occurred in the past.
On the Canary Island of El Hierro, a semi-circular escarpment of rock left behind after a landslide is covered in melted rock. McGuire posits that a landslide here in the past “moved so quickly that it heated the rock through friction and melted it. That is a catastrophic event.”
It is an event that geologists have termed a Global Geophysical Event or “Gee Gee,” by nickname. Other similar catastrophes include an asteroid strike to the planet. While earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions are relatively common — they can occur several times a year around the world — a Gee Gee is rarer but on such a scale that the entire planet may be affected.
Yet McGuire and other experts point to progress being made in monitoring potential asteroid strikes as evidence of what adequate scientific research and global preparation can do in the event of a looming catastrophe.
Already astronomers have mapped the heavens around our planet for rogue rocks to such an extent that within a few years even an asteroid likely to make a near miss encounter with earth will be detected months or even years ahead of the encounter — scientists will have plenty of warning so that something may be done to minimize harm.
And so back to our moving earth and massive ocean waves.
There is no risk in the short or medium term, says McGuire, but the volcano in question, Cumbre Vieja, could present humanity with a major problem at some point in the future. The tsunamis created by its eruption and collapse into the sea would wipe out the entire sub-Saharan coastline of Africa. At 15 meters, the waves would still wash ashore on the southern coast of Ireland, wrecking havoc. And the relatively flat landscape of Florida would be landfall for a tsunami crossing the Atlantic Ocean at 800 kilometers per hour.
What can be done is simple, said McGuire. Patient and adequate scientific monitoring of sites such as Cumbre Vieja will allow the planet time to prepare.
For McGuire’s University College London Web site, which is a comprehensive resource on future global cataclysms, visit: www.benfieldhrc.org.