[meteorite-list] LANL: Meteor Could Cause Big Tsunami

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jan 10 16:03:12 2005
Message-ID: <200501102103.NAA07622_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19858_3459190,00.html

Lab: Meteor could cause big tsunami
By Sue Vorenberg
Alguquerque Tribune
January 10, 2005

Los Alamos National Laboratory is watching the sky for tsunamis.

While most tsunamis are caused by earthquakes or landslides, the
potential for an asteroid-caused tsunami remains a threat the world
should watch out for, said Galen Gisler, a Los Alamos National
Laboratory scientist.

"Every 10,000 years or so, we should get a tsunami from an asteroid, and
we haven't had one in about that amount of time," Gisler said. "It's a
hard thing to calculate, because we don't know how many asteroids are
out there, but some international groups are starting to do surveys to
quantify that."

On lab computers, Gisler is modeling the potential impacts of such a
strike. The hope is that the modeling will help give warning of where
tsunamis would go and how they would propagate if a large asteroid
struck one of the world's oceans, he said.

That warning could become part of a larger series of monitoring systems
that would prevent another disaster like the recent tsunami in the
Indian Ocean, he said.

It would cost a few million dollars to set up those systems for
asteroids, earthquakes and landslides in each of the world's seas and
oceans, but the warning systems could save thousands of lives, Gisler said.

"If we had a monitoring system in the Indian Ocean, maybe 75,000 lives
could have been saved in this recent disaster," Gisler said. "It's just
ridiculous when you look back that the money wasn't spent."

Asteroids are one of several under-monitored events that could cause a
disaster, Gisler said.

An asteroid the width of a half-mile or bigger could cause tsunami waves
to propagate across an entire ocean. If something like that happened in
the Pacific, the world would get warning because of the monitoring
system there. Not so in the Atlantic, where there is no system, Gisler
said.

"There's a danger of tsunamis in all oceans," Gisler said. "Earthquakes
are a danger in the Pacific, Caribbean and Indian Ocean, but landslides,
volcanoes and asteroids can also cause them."

The Caribbean and Indian Ocean also don't have systems, he said.

Gisler's model grew out of his work at the lab analyzing how bomb blasts
will travel through water. After the tragedy in the Indian Ocean, it has
taken on new meaning, he said.

"My personal feeling is that all the world's oceans should be monitored
against these types of things," Gisler said.

Other factors than earthquakes could cause significant damage in areas
where people might think they're safe, said Sue Bilek, a New Mexico Tech
scientist who studies earthquake related tsunamis.

"There's not much danger in the Atlantic Ocean of a tsunami from an
earthquake, but many scientists have theorized you could get a
significant tsunami from a landslide or volcanic eruption," Bilek said.

And a strike by a half-mile wide asteroid in the Atlantic near Florida
could cause a 10-foot-tall tsunami that could kill thousands and create
massive property destruction, Gisler added.

Even the Gulf of Mexico isn't completely safe, he said.

"The Caribbean has active volcanoes and faults where the Caribbean plate
is sliding into the Atlantic plate," Gisler said. "Tsunamis could easily
propagate from that area into the Gulf."

Scientists are doing what they can to learn from the disaster, by
modeling it to understand the devastating waves more clearly, Gisler
said. The international community is also finally talking about setting
up tsunami warning systems in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, he added.

"All you can hope for when something like this happens is that some good
can come out of it," Gisler said.
Received on Mon 10 Jan 2005 04:03:02 PM PST