Geologists working on the Cape Verde Islands in Africa have discovered that there was a cataclysm in ancient times, similar to the scenario of a Hollywood disaster movie. A giant volcano on the island collapsed during an eruption, which caused a giant landslide, which in turn caused a tsunami with a wave height of almost 300 meters.
It swept 50 kilometers inland and swept away everything in its path. For comparison, the tsunami that destroyed Japan's northeastern coast in 2011 rose to a height of "only" about 40 meters.
Is it possible that such megatsunami caused the destruction of Atlantis or the Flood?
Scientists believe that, since a similar event has already happened once, nothing prevents it from repeating itself. It should also be borne in mind that many powerful currently active volcanoes are located close to densely populated areas. For example, volcanoes in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean are of particular concern to scientists.
In their scientific article published in the journal Science, scientists provide evidence that the 2.8-kilometer-high volcano on Fogu Island, one of the largest and most active volcanoes in the world, collapsed during an eruption 73 thousand years ago.
It exploded during the eruption and half of its eastern walls with a total volume of 160 cubic kilometers were thrown into the sea. This collapse generated a wave so large that it swept over the neighboring island of Santiago.
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“Our observations have shown that such collapses can indeed occur. This catastrophic event will set off a tsunami of tremendous height and energy, says lead author Ricardo Ramalho of Columbia University. "Although such large-scale eruptions and landslides are rare, we must take them into account when assessing the potential hazard of volcanic features."
Boulders that scientists have also studied
Ramalo and his colleagues worked on Santiago Island several years ago. Then they noticed a strange feature at an altitude of 200 meters above sea level: 49 giant boulders the size of a van did not match the sea-type rocks from which the coastline of the island was formed.
The only explanation that scientists found was the assumption that a giant wave picked up these 770-ton stones, carried them to the island and rolled over it like a pebble. Later, scientists calculated the size of the wave, based on the calculation of the amount of energy that would be needed to move these blocks.
When Lamaro and geochemist Gisela Winckler measured the content of helium isotopes in the surface of the boulders, they found that the stones had lain there for about 73 thousand years.
The conclusions presented in the article, according to the researchers, will provoke scientific controversy, since many scientists do not believe that volcanoes can suddenly collapse and cause huge tsunamis. However, there are suggestions that this is not the only prehistoric large-scale collapse.
Probably, similar emergencies occurred in antiquity on the Hawaiian Islands, as well as in Italy (as a result of the collapse of Etna) and in the Indian Ocean on Reunion Island.
“This does not mean that such disasters will happen all the time,” Ramalo said. "However, it is likely that they are not as rare as we believe, and they can be especially destructive if they affect a densely populated coastal area."