Geologists have discovered evidence of an ancient 560-foot mega-tsunami. Rising from the Atlantic ocean, hundreds of miles off the coast of West Africa, there’s a volcano with a 73,000-year-old scar swiped across its face. This is the mark of an ancient catastrophe, etched into the rock when a huge chunk of the volcano’s eastern flank rushed all at once into the sea.
That particular flank collapse displaced enough water to generate a powerful tsunami—one that, new evidence shows, might have been much, much bigger than geologists previously believed. “Our work provides evidence that the well-known collapse at Fogo volcano produced a very large tsunami that impacted the nearby island of Santiago,” said Ricardo Ramalho, an Earth-sciences research fellow at the University of Bristol.
That particular flank collapse displaced enough water to generate a powerful tsunami—one that, new evidence shows, might have been much, much bigger than geologists previously believed. “Our work provides evidence that the well-known collapse at Fogo volcano produced a very large tsunami that impacted the nearby island of Santiago,” said Ricardo Ramalho, an Earth-sciences research fellow at the University of Bristol.