I hope this video puts to rest the fear by some that a megatsunami will be generated by the collapse of the entire southern flank of the Kilauea volcano.
Since your previous video covered the earthquakes in Turkey, maybe one on the 3.8 magnitude earthquake that followed immediately after near Buffalo, NY would be an interesting topic.
"It won't happen soon, if at all" false. According to the professionals it will happen again. "If at all" implies it may not happen. I appreciate you not fear mongering but I don't appreciate the flat out lie
It must have been some sort of cosmic fate that I was watching one of your videos, when at 6:15 AM a rare earthquake occurred, epicenter was only 1.5 miles from my home near Buffalo, NY 2 days ago. I felt the shock wave run right thru me and the house... Scared the S### out of me!! I thought the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypses were coming over.. In my 63 years this was a first for me!! The epicenter was directly over a creek where I fish for steelhead trout, they run from Sept.-March. I was actually getting ready to head out to the creek when the quake occurred....
My gut tells me that you are already working on it, but I would very much enjoy hearing your take on the new layer of Earth whose discovery was widely reported today. Is this new knowledge going to be a game-changer about our understanding of the movement of tectonic plates? And also, keeping with the recent theme of the Hawaiian islands, I am interested in the forces at work responsible for the regular deflation/inflation events at the summit of Kilauea. Is this regularity common at the summits of other volcanos in the shield-building phase? Are these same forces responsible for the "pistoning" we see at various points of output from Kilauea? I'm specifically thinking of USGS videos I saw of of a fissure on the wall of the collapsed caldera, and another of Fissure 8 from 2018.
"new layer of Earth" - you are probably referring to the announcement that part of the asthenosphere has molten elements. Geophysicists have continued to make more detailed discoveries of the interior of our planet, and have previously announced this or that "layer" as they unpeel the Earth. This latest discovery gives us insight into why the asthenosphere is as plastic as it is. Look for "Asthenospheric low-velocity zone consistent with globally prevalent partial melting" in _Nature Geosciences_ .
Thanks for answering my question! I've seen some white papers about the Azores having a real risk of a collapse like this happening. Could you get around to that topic at some point? Thanks again!
Exciting times for you Geologists, GH. With science now providing great insight into the dynamics of volcanism and tectonics but on a human timescale, it's difficult to extrapolate based on this current body of knowledge in geologic timescales. That said, I'm sure there are no documented instances of high confidence in the Geo community in predicting that no event will occur in a given scenario but then a catastrophe occurring instead. It's a crap-shoot for sure. Thanks for another post with great content, production and presentation. Cheers.
It makes sense that the size of the Island will eventually shrink one way or another. People wonder about and worry about things that can't be managed by people and its useless to worry. Curiosity is one thing but trying to invent problems is not very smart. We need to recognize that whatever happens in nature is not under control.
Kauai and Oahu are long done with their slides. Maui and Kona Big Island are the main suspects for future or distant future slide. If you go to Maui, those long extinct volcanos have very steep slopes. But not the rift zones that caused back stop in sea floor.
I don’t know what he’s using but on mobile you can’t beat the Gaia GPS app, I used to work for them, you can have multiple maps and change transparency for each layer, and the app has like 50 maps including historical maps, USGS, topos, 4 diff satellite map imagery sources, and more. I haven’t worked there in years but the app is still a killer. I think you need the premium to do map overlays though.
I'm just waiting or a group that wants to cause a lot of damage to figure out how to engineer a slide. I think it would be pretty obvious if one saw drilling rigs going up in that area.
Wonder if there's subaquatic mountains that are at risk of a landslide, recently been checking google earth and south of the Azores islands there's a few quite collossal mountains 4000m in height (in relation to the surrounding ocean bottom) with fairly steep angles.
It can certainly happen (although I’m unaware of any that are currently at risk). Look up the Storegga Slides and how the resulting extremely large tsunami from one of them sunk Doggerland (a large piece of land that used to exist to the East of Britain).
The concept of mega-sapping being used in a decreasingly unlikely WWIII activates my almonds like nothing else. A 50-300 MT device obliterating that ridge and also providing the shockwave to trigger the landslide is well within the realm of possibility. Similar attack could be performed on one or more of the Azores or Canary Islands. Land based empires have a major strategic advantage in such a fight. If it could be triggered in a deniable way you might not even be able to retaliate. "Russian hearts and prayers are with the families of all affected."
Eh, good 'ol fashioned nukes are more than enough to do the job on their own just targeting cities. Not to mention the extreme amount of power needed to pulverize that much rock, under the ocean no less. There is a reason that volcanoes are often compared to nuclear bombs, to show just how immense the energy released in a large eruption is. It would just be extremely impractical unless the slide was already juuuuuust about to go. Its like bombing volcanoes; effective, but only for triggering something that was already inevitable just a tad early.
@@StuffandThings_ Hunga Tunga was about 25 MT, IIRC. Seems like plenty of power to effect something like we are talking about here. But then, as you say, and as Russian propaganda says, Poseidon exists to affect direct effects, IE megatsunamis. They may not need, and likely don't want something like what I was talking about earlier, as they have no interest in destroying their allies/neutral parties who share coasts with their enemies.
The moment the Slump stops mowing but Kilauea continues to be active is when the danger of a large slide becomes possible. The very movement keeps the slope from ove-rsteepening. But, even if it did stop today, it would take thousands of years of activity to get to the point of collapse. So not in our lifetime would there be a massive collapse.
It is near impossible for we human beings to comprehend the time scale in which the Hawaiian Islands, and the Emperor Seamount grew to an island chain spanning half the Pacific Ocean. Our brains evolved with the concept of causality, and we therefore expect to see results and consequences on a human time scale. These islands grew over 10 million years, and the seamounts that trend northeasterly toward Japan appeared and then eroded back into the sea over many more millions of years. Homo sapiens have existed on the planet for 100,000 to 200,000 years. We agreed on how the Emperor chain was formed less than 100 years ago. No wonder our science doesn't completely understand the geophysics of earthquakes and tsunami. But we learn more every year, and it will require a very sophisticated model to predict these dynamic events -- orders of magnitude greater than today's models. Please, don't blame GeoHub for having human limitations. 😉
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong and at the least opportune time. I never say the earth is unlikely to do a thing. As soon as you say it, it becomes more likely, just because fate has her ways of humbling humanity.
I think if the chances ever got to be greater, I wouldn't be surprised if the US Army Corp of Engineers would just start to explode and/or mine away any parts that seemed to be at great risk of collapsing
@@kahoaalohamalalis8841 I'm talking about the federal government, if it came to the matter of a landslide tsunami affecting other states, I think they would be inclined to take action. Though I don't doubt that the people of Hawaii, in particular the people who live nearby the slump might be angry about it.
Koʻolau is pronounced Koh-oh-lau where lau rhymes with bough as in the bough of a tree. Hawaiian spelling is phonetic in an uncomplicated way and what you said would be written "kuʻulaʻu".
Black Swan Theory. A Black Swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black Swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight.
By research on the other islands and La Palma, it’s guaranteed it will happen one day. Maybe not in the next 1,000 years but over the next 1-5 million!? Who knows.
@@joshsmith3650different slumps and faults have different characteristics. Will some Hawaiian island or future Hawaiian island suffer some sudden catastrophic collapse? Yes. Will it be this slump? Extremely unlikely
How about a video on the lava flows of kileauea in the last 500 years? For those of us living in HPP, orchid land, Hawaiian acres, fern forest, etc, it would be really cool to know how old the lava flows are that we live on. When you drive around this area the landscape can change rapidly in only a few blocks.
The lavas in Puna are about 700 to 800 years old. It takes about 2000 years for Kilauea to resurface itself. Right now, it appears to be concentrating on building its Southern slope. But it doesn't mean the Northern slope will not get its share of flows as one was heading to Pahoa in 2014.
The last time most of Puna was covered was in the 1400's, from a large Kilauea Iki eruption called the ʻAilāʻau eruption. I live in Ainaloa so I looked it up when the Leilani Estates eruption happened in 2018. I was curious too when the last time Ainaloa had flows and it was during that time period.
Hi geologist from Hawaii here. This is really silly, Hawaii is known for runaway landslides. If you look at the sea floor you will see each island has collapsed again and again and again overtime. The catch is nobody knows exactly when a massive landslide will happen
Another great video, I did not know about the ridge that sort've acts as a tensioner or as you said backstop. Very interesting. It's truly fascinating to know that landmasses of this incredible size move and do so at really shallow angles. Thanks for clearing this one up
There is also the Great Crack on the eastern side of the island that is slowing widening every year. It's similar to the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary Island of Las Palmas. National Geographic has a nice documentary on mega tsunami's and likely what will cause them Very similar to the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami. This tsunami will happen on both coast's of North America eventually.
I remember watching a video saying that Japan's eastern subduction area has a slow ongoing slip so a large tsunami would not happen. Literally a year after the video the 9.0 hit and a huge tsunami occurred. I would never under estimate the power of a hot spot. Mother nature will find a way to prove you wrong if she wants.
Well if it does go there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. The wave it generates would measure roughly 150ft high and race towards South America at 550 mph. Millions of people would parish, hopefully it won’t happen.
In 1975 there was tsunami at Halape beneath the Hilina Pali generated by a local 7.0 earthquake occurring offshore, along with a Kilauea summit eruption
I missed this one! Well, not any more. And I'm leaving a like and comment for the care and feeding of the Almighty Algorithm, too. 🙏🏽 May it put your videos in front of the geology-curious!
I love how this starts by telling us there is practically no chance of such an occurrence, then proceeds to tell us about the many previous times such an event has occurred. Right up to what, 2018 did it say? But hey, do NOT concern yourself over such utterly unlikely threats.
I've been watching for some time and finally have an idea for a topic unless it's been covered previously. The Alaskan mega thrust earthquake and mega thrusts in general ^^
Would you please consider utilizing green instead of red in personal captions, it truly is easier to flash read then red, I appreciate your breakdowns and knowledge to my intrest in the geo-sciences.
I’d like to see something on Fogo, and I suppose as an extension, La Palma Those collapses (or future possible?) look different compared to a shield volcano
It happened before with tremendous effect and its inevitable it will happen again. In fact the tremendous Tsunami it caused was but the trigger for an even bigger one which absolutely buried the island in the sea, depositing shellfish on the mountain tops.
please dont make motehr earth say "hold my beer" I had a nightmare about a tsunami in california t 14 yr old adn the volcanos there effect me so please this aint he year , change you wording XD
Geologists are scientists who aren't as concerned with a potentially threatening landslide as one example that is possible, but only remotely. If we focus too much attention on the landslides that are very unlikely then we risk missing the more likely landslide threats. The same could be said for volcanoes, earthquakes etc.
It's all about probability. Because of the ridge lying below the mountain edge even if the mountain goes it won't go far because of the ridge. That makes the probability of it being a serious threat to humanity as very low. Within that low probability is something that could occur that is not foreseen. That does happen sometimes. We can't foresee every possible threat. But say for example the ridge is not as stable as it is thought and collapses quickly when the mountain edge gives way. I'm saying that hypothetically and not even something that know has been considered.
@@michaeldeierhoi4096 yeah, he just seems arrogantly biased about the threat. I'm not saying to fear monger but just don't downplay it. USGS says they are "still determining the potential hazard"
I would like to see info on how the bigger storms and higher winds will increase erosion. Two problems are the higher waves will increase the over flow costal barriers like costal islands and reefs. Also, as the oceans get higher from global warming, this will also cause costal erosion to increase, too.
