Undersea volcano threatens southern Italy

[Harpo]

France24 - Undersea volcano threatens southern Italy: report

Europe's largest undersea volcano could disintegrate and unleash a tsunami that would engulf southern Italy "at any time", a prominent vulcanologist warned in an interview published Monday. The Marsili volcano, which is bursting with magma, has "fragile walls" that could collapse, Enzo Boschi told the leading daily Corriere della Sera.
"It could even happen tomorrow," said Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).
"Our latest research shows that the volcano is not structurally solid, its walls are fragile, the magma chamber is of sizeable dimensions," he said. "All that tells us that the volcano is active and could begin erupting at any time."
The event would result in "a strong tsunami that could strike the coasts of Campania, Calabria and Sicily," Boschi said.
The undersea Marsili, 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) tall and located some 150 kilometres (90 miles) southwest of Naples, has not erupted since the start of recorded history.
It is 70 kilometres long and 30 kilometres wide, and its crater is some 450 metres below the surface of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
"A rupture of the walls would let loose millions of cubic metres of material capable of generating a very powerful wave," Boschi said.
"While the indications that have been collected are precise, it is impossible to make predictions. The risk is real but hard to evaluate."

 

[Ursa major]

Scary.

And given the way Tsunamis behave, one might suspect that one caused by an eruption of Marsili could also affect Sardinia, Tunisia, Corsica and Algeria, if not farther afield.

 

[Dave]

I was a little skeptical of this; thinking that if it were true and not scaremongering then I would have heard about it before. However, there is an Italian Wikipedia page for Marsilli and there are several scientific studies and papers. It just seems that no one had thought it possible before, or they thought that an eruption from Etna more likely and more damaging. If we believe any truth in mythical events such as Atlantis, and biblical stories such as the parting of the Red Sea, it is possible that such events have happened before in the Mediterranean, maybe frequently. The explosive eruption of Thera/Santorini must have had effects of similar proportions.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Thera eruption was bigger still

 

[HareBrain]

Reminds me of a story that was on some science programme a few years ago which said that at some point -- maybe in a year, maybe ten thousand -- the side of one of the Canary Islands was going to collapse, causing a tsunami that would devastate the entire east cost of America. Haven't heard anything about it since.

And then of course there's Yellowstone ...

The ground has it in for us, people!

 

[Ursa major]

But should we put our foot down, or try to stamp our authority...? Perhaps not.


That island in the Canaries is La Palma, where, it has been suggested, a part of the island weighing 1.5 x1015 kg - 1.5 trillion tonnes - could slide into the ocean. The Horizon programme which talked about this concentrated on graphics for the US east coast (crude models of New York, I think, and perhaps Miami were shown being hit by a wave over half a kilometre high). I don't think this is the whole story, though: I doubt we to the north would be unaffected with waves of this magnitude racing across the Atlantic in all directions.

 

[mosaix]

Well spotted Harpo.

An interesting story. It makes me realise that the Earth cares not a jot for the those of us living upon it.