Massive Greenland tsunami behind mysterious nine-day seismic event: Report September 16, 2024

According to a report recently published in the scientific journal “Science”, the tremors recorded in September 2023 originated from the massive wave that rocked back and forth in Dickson Fjord, in remote eastern Greenland. - Photo Pixabay via pexels.com

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Massive Greenland tsunami behind mysterious nine-day seismic event: Report

A tsunami caused by a landslide in a Greenland fjord caused by melting ice is behind a surprising seismic event last year that shook the Earth for nine days, a researcher told AFP on Friday.

According to a report published recently in the scientific journal Science, the tremors recorded in September 2023 originated from the massive wave that rocked back and forth in Dickson Fjord, in remote eastern Greenland.

“What is unique about this event is the duration of the seismic signal and the constancy of the frequency,” one of the report's authors, Kristian Svennevig of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), told AFP.

“Other landslides and tsunamis have produced seismic signals, but only for a few hours and very locally. This one was observed globally to Antarctica,” he said.

The phenomenon initially surprised the scientific community, which began by defining it as an “unidentified seismic object” before determining that the source was the landslide.

In September 2023, 25 million cubic meters of rock and ice fell into the fjord in the remote and uninhabited area, almost 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the ocean.

The landslide triggered a 200-meter-high mega-tsunami at its epicenter.

Seventy kilometers away, tsunami waves four meters high damaged a research base on the island of Ella.

The collapse was caused by the thinning of the glacier at the base of the mountain, a process accelerated by climate change, according to the report.

“With the continued warming of the Arctic, we can expect the frequency and magnitude of such events to increase in the future,” said Svennevig.

“We have no experience in dealing with an Arctic as warm as the one we observe now,” he added.

He emphasized the need to deploy early warning systems but noted that this is a challenge in extreme environments.

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