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

From: Chris Peterson <clp_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Jan 11 11:14:04 2005
Message-ID: <051f01c4f7f8$8314b920$f551040a_at_bellatrix>

Are you sure about that? There is some question about the dynamics of the
water displacement- that is, most of it goes up, not out. And that total
volume of water is somewhere between a few tens and few hundreds of cubic
kilometers. Contrast that with the recent Indian Ocean event. The shift in
the ocean floor resulted in the displacement of over 1000 cubic kilometers
of water, and produced waves in most locations of 3-5 meters.

While an asteroid impact seems like a dramatic thing, it is far from obvious
to me that tsunamis larger than 10s of meters would be a natural result.
Since simulations seem to show everything from a few meters to 100 meters or
so, I think I'll just reserve judgment until those simulations settle down.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sterling K. Webb" <kelly_at_bhil.com>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List"
<meteorite-list_at_resalehost.networksolutions.com>
Cc: "Ron Baalke" <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] LANL: Meteor Could Cause Big Tsunami


> Hi,
>
> Newspaper science strikes again! Or is it reporter science?
> The impact of an 800 meter asteroid "near" Florida (300 kilometers?)
> would
> produce a wave more 10 feet tall? Duh!
> This is an impact with more than 35,000,000,000 tons of TNT equivalent
> and
> would displace the ocean to a depth of 3500 meters in a "wet" crater 15
> kilometers
> across.
> The tidal wave at the Florida cost would be hundreds of meters high (if
> not
> thousands)! It would kill every human inhabitant of Florida and most all
> the
> gators! You could stand on the highest point in Florida (near Micanopi)
> and watch
> it roll right over you (if you were anchored in concrete) hundreds of feet
> above.
> Can we persuade Sue to go there and report on it if it happens?
>
> Sterling K. Webb
Received on Tue 11 Jan 2005 11:13:39 AM PST