This is an underwater eruption, if it goes on long enough the volcano could emerge from the sea. This is how the Canary Islands were originally formed, after all.
Some scientists have a theory that occasionally segments of the Canary Islands break off and fall into the sea, causing tsunamis. They predict that, sometime in the future, a large enough segment (a mountainside, basically) could fall into the ocean and trigger tsunamis that would inundate the entire eastern coastline of the USA.
There is a alot of interesting info in regards to hawaii and landslides and tsunamis. Google hawaii land slides..
ReplyDeleteheres one:
http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/posters/underlandslides.html
Basically the islands are "born" over a hot spot and then slowly are reclaimed by the ocean. Sonographs(sp) show amazing huge landslides that have created some HUGE tsunamis in that past.
I have a buddy who's got an on-going phobia about one of those Canary Island tsunamis hitting Massachusetts. As PISSED said, volcanic islands are brittle and break apart rather easily. There's a big piece of Molokai sitting way up-country on Maui from an "episode" a long time back.
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