Mega-tsunami in Greenland was caused by landslide
Last month, a devastating mega-tsunami tore through a remote area of Greenland, decimating homes as huge waves carrying the shattered chunks of a glacier swept through.
Now, data from a reconnaissance mission at the site has revealed the terrifying waves reached more than 300 feet tall â€" and, scientists say it was all caused by a massive landslide.
The landslide that gave rise to the disaster plunged into the ocean from roughly 3,300 feet up the Karrat Fjord, spurring a small earthquake and tsunami waves that traveled about the length of a football field each second.
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Scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology say this is a ‘particularly unique situation,’ as another landslide nearby is active, but has yet to fall. The active region can be seen on the left side of the section inside the white rectangle, while the scarring can be seen to the right
Scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology say this is a ‘particularly unique situation,’ as another landslide nearby is active, but has yet to fall.
During the June tsunami, houses were destroyed and four people were washed away.
As a result of the ongoing hazard, three villages remain evacuated.
‘The second adjacent landslide remains a hazard, with an open back scarp and wide cracks a thousand meters above the water ,’ said Georgia Tech professor Hermann Fritz.
‘We had an unusual opportunity to record the aftermath of one landslide and tsunami and the baseline of a potential future event.’
The team, including a volcanologist from the University of Oregon and a geotechnical engineer from BGC Engineering, arrived at the site at the beginning of this month to collect data and build a 3-D reconstruction of the landslide.
According to the researchers, the scarring stretches a full kilometer up the slopes of the fjord. This can be seen on the right side of the image above
The waves sent huge icebergs hurtling ashore â€" but, the researchers say these are already shrinking. The team is hoping to study this debris to find out more about the full extent of the disaster
This revealed that the massive waves generated by the landslide climbed over 90 meters (300 feet) high on the same side of the coastline, and 50 meters high in the region directly across.
According to the experts, the waves on both sides far surpassed the height â€" also known as runup â€" from the 2011 tsunami in Japan, which hit about 40 meters.
These waves first began at staggering heights, and then quickly dissipated as they traveled across the fjord.
‘The essentially undisturbed semi-circle spreading of the tsunami waves results in massive decay of the surveyed tsunami runup heights compared to the initial tsunami height,’ Fritz said.
During the June tsunami, houses were destroyed and four people were washed away. As a result of the ongoing hazard, three villages remain evacuated.
The waves sent huge icebergs hurtling ashore â€" but, the researchers say these are already shrinking.
The team is hoping to study this debris to find out more about the full extent of the disaster, and better understand why four people were swept out to sea while others were not, and were even able to record footage of the waves as they rolled in.
While the exact cause of the tsunami first eluded authorities, the videos from the Danish Navy and other responders provided useful insight, revealing scarring that stretched a full kilometer up the slopes of the fjord.
This indicates that a landslide was to blame for the devastating incident, which has been compared to a 1958 landslide-generated tsunami in Lituya Bay, Alaska.
The Greenland government said the small village of Nuugaatsiaq in the northwest was flooded, while two other places in the same region, Uummannaq and Illorsuit, were also affected
The landslide that gave rise to the disaster plunged into the ocean from roughly 3,300 feet up the Karrat Fjord, spurring a small earthquake and tsunami waves that traveled about the length of a football field each second
But, they say the event last month may have been even more extreme, with the landslide falling into deeper water and a larger fjord system.
‘At these depths, tsunami waves travel about the length of a football field every second, so the tsunami wave arrived very fast â€" probably on the order of five minutes for this village 30 km away,’ Fritz said.
‘That left very little time to react.
‘The combination of a small earthquake from the plunge of the landslide, the sound, and unusual motion in the fjord prompted a spontaneous self-evacuation.’
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