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I was just reading an article on the BBC News site about Global Geophysical Events. I've read about this huge mountain of a rock in the Canary Islands before, and I've always wondered if there weren't something we could do to take care of this threat. I expect that for a few percent of the cost of the Iraq war, we could find a way to either stabilize, dismantle, or move this thing to the bottom of the ocean in a controlled way. I'm going to go and research this a bit and see what I can find out about it (slow day at work, so I actually have the time for a change). On the good news front, progress is continuing to be made on the whole asteroid collision prevention front. Nothing new listed in the article, but it does touch briefly on the fact that we're making progress on that front.
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Here is an article from a 1996 issue of The Independent that discusses the possibility of a La Palma landslide triggering a huge tusnami in greater detail than did the BBC article linked to above. The data discussed is pretty old though; I'll continue digging and see if I can find something more recent.
Here is a general article on the geology of La Palma. It's got some great pictures as well.
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It was interesting I just watched Armaggedon (the movie) the other night. And I know they would identify an asteroid on a collision course a lot sooner now than the time frame they had in that movie.
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All of the articles I've been able to find reference data that is 4-8 years old. How frustrating! I've emailed Simon Day, the researcher most frequently mentioned in those articles as an expert in the field, and asked him a bunch of questions. We'll see if he writes back.
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Anybody care to brainstorm with me about macroengineering projects that could be undertaken to either ameliorate the problem or eliminate it altogether?
It seems to me that possible solutions would have to fall under one of three broad categories:
Stabilize the rock in question, preventing enough of it from sloughing off during volcanic disturbances (or due to erosion or something) to avert the problem.
Lower the entire thing into the ocean in a controlled way, doing it slowly enough that it doesn't generate a tsunami.
Dismantle the rock, dropping it a piece at a time (or whatever) into the ocean.
Option #1, even if it would work (and since I don't know anything about the composition of the rock in question, I have no idea if it would) strikes me as a band-aid approach. Eventually, the thing would come down, just as before. So, bad idea, although perhaps worth pursuing if it would be effective enough to buy us a little guaranteed breathing room to accomplish either #2 or #3. Option #2 strikes me as being an utterly massive feat of engineering, and any way I can imagine of doing it would probably be prohibitively expensive. I'm open to suggestion though.
Option #3 seems the most feasible, but it's always possible that taking a team of jackhammers to it would cause enough vibration to send the whole thing into the ocean in a hurry. Any geologists or engineers able to shed any light on this? Controlled explosives might work, but again, you risk bringing the whole shelf face down. Maybe a combination of #1 and #3? If there were some way to kind of isolate the sections one was working on from the rest of the cliff face, that would make it safer. Is there any way to do that?
Another possibility that just occurred to me is building something beneath the area where it will fall to cushion the blow. I doubt that would work (remember, I'm brainstorming here, so I'm allowed to have dumb ideas).
Ooooh, oooh, what about building a retaining wall type structure around the area where it would fall? Might that be capable of forcing the wave to expend its energy early?
Or what about a series of baffles built at various points in the Atlantic, constructed in such a way that most of their length was under water. Mightn't that catch and dissipate enough of the wave's energy to render it harmless by the time it got to heavily populated coastal areas? Anybody know much about tsunamis? How deep do their waves go, before they get to shallow coastal areas and rear up?
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posted
I heard about this this morning, but I haven't had a chance to read up on it. I'm kind of interested in what's being done, and what kind of timeframes we're talking about. I'll look into it and get back to you.
edit- Okay, after a quick review here's my thoughts. Honestly I don't think engineering technology is up to the task at the moment. But the best bet would probably be to break up the rock and carry it away. A team of jackhammers would probably not affect the island near enough to start the slide. If that were the case, it wouldn't have lasted as long as it has. But we're also talking about billions of tons of rock, so you're not likely to be able to make much headway very quickly. It's concievable that a controlled explosives program could work, because there are ways to use destructive interference in the shock waves to minimize impact. But really again, billions of tons of rock.
Doing it ourselves in a controlled manner is not, I think, feasible, because I doubt the technology exists that could lower something so massive so deep in the ocean. And dampening the blow would be far too massive an undertaking. Baffles and such would have to be constructed at every coastline that is likely to be affected, and, make no mistake, they would have to be massive. I don't think a system of baffles near the island itself would be constructable either.
Now I suppose it's concievable that we could design a system of anchors, but I couldn't find a real geometric description of the expected chunk. Plus we're still talking about anchoring something that's billions of tons. Maybe also there's some way to fuse the threatening chunk back to the mainland. I can't remember what it's called, but there's a procedure in environmental engineering where a soil mass containing contaminants is superheated, basically liquefying the soil and causing it to turn back to stone. If the technique could be modified to treat the slip surface, that might be a possible remediative action.
These are some thoughts from a soils engineer. I don't really know how the underlying processes would affect any of these corrective actions so some or all of them may be completely bogus. And I didn't look too close so some may not be any good simply because of the way things are (for instance, you couldn't anchor one side of a transform fault to the other as there is no anchor in the world that would be strong enough to stop that). I tend to work at a much smaller scale.
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Discovery channel had a show on this about a year ago. I always thought that a truely anti-American terrorists with a big bomb could be a lot more devastating right here than downtown Chicago.
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posted
Thanks for the feedback Happy Camper. I figured that my ideas probably weren't possible, but I was curious to hear what someone in the field thought.
Dan, that's a fairly horrifying thought.
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quote: Or what about a series of baffles built at various points in the Atlantic, constructed in such a way that most of their length was under water.
While that sounds really expensive, maybe there is some way to get them to turn the kinetic energy of the tides into electricity. Thus averting the "no cheap oil" bomb as well.
:clears a spot on wall for Nobel Prize:
P.S. Actually, wasn't there an near Earth crossing asteroid that just barely missed us, and it was only seen a couple months before it could have, in theory, hit? This was a few years ago.
Asteroid near miss Okay, I was wrong. No one saw it until after it passed.
P.P.S. I also think it would be good to have gangs of convicts breaking up the worry rock.
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I got a response back from Simon Day! I've written back asking if I can post it here. He's also sent me a paper he published in 2001 that looks like exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. I can't wait to read it tomorrow at work!
By the way, according to Day, the rock in question weighs in at somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000,000,000,000 tons. Might be a little more than my proposed team of jackhammer operators could handle, eh? Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I just saw this, but I can't add much more than HC, especially in light of the weight. He knows more about rock than I do anyway since I live and work on a big sand dune.
I considered some type of anchors, such as rods driven through the fault. It's just too much though. I think it might be better if I just move.
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posted
Sorry for the confusion, FG--it's basically the majority of the western flank of the volcano, at least 15 km long (but quite possibly longer), and extending 8 km inland. I'm getting this information from the paper Day sent me. If you're interested, I can send you a copy--it's pretty short, just five pages--after I get the okay from him to distribute it to people.
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posted
Oh, I should have read a little further before I posted that. Actually, they expect the edge future collapse to be 2-3 km further inland. So, make that 10-11 km, and keep in mind that the western edge of the unstable region is hidden someplace underwater, probably 5-10 km offshore. Man, that's a lot of rock.
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posted
Perfect excuse to post one of my favorite songs by Harry Chapin:
quote:The rock is gonna fall on us, he woke with a start And he ran to his mother, the fear dark in his heart And he told her of the vision that he was sure he'd seen She said: "Go back to sleep son, you're having a bad dream!"
Silly child-- Everybody knows the rock leans over the town Everybody knows that it won't tumble to the ground Remember Chicken Little said the sky was falling down Well nothing ever came of that, the world still whirls around
"The rock is gonna fall on us," he stood and told the class The professor put his chalk down and peered out through his glasses But he went on and said; "I've seen it, high up on the hill If it doesn't fall this year then very soon it will!"
Crazy boy-- Everybody knows the rock leans over the town Everybody knows that it won't tumble to the ground We've more important studies than your fantasies and fears You know that rock's been perched up there for a hundred thousand years
"The rock is gonna fall on us." He told the magistrates "I believe that we can stop it but the time is getting late You see I've done all the research my plans are all complete." He was showing them contingencies when they showed him to the street
Just a madman-- Everybody knows the rock leans over the town Everybody knows that it won't tumble to the ground Everybody knows of those who say the end is near Everybody knows that life goes on as usual round here
He went up on the mountain beside the giant stone They knew he was insane so they left him alone He'd given up enlisting help for there was no one else He spent his days devising ways to stop the rock himself One night while he was working building braces on the ledge The ground began to rumble the rock trembled on the edge
"The rock is gonna fall on us! Run or you'll all be crushed!" And indeed the rock was moving, crumbling all to dust He ran under it with one last hope that he could add a prop And as he disappeared the rock came to a stop
The people ran into the street but by then all was still The rock seemed where it always was or where it always will be When someone asked where he had gone they said: "Oh he was daft. Who cares about that crazy fool." And then they'd start to laugh
But high up on the mountain When the wind is hitting it If you're watching very closely The rock slips a little bit
Edit:
And I can't imagine an option that doesn't carry with it the risk of dropping the rock sooner. The question will be analyzing the risk of a particular course of action compared with doing nothing.
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I know what you mean Dag--the only one that wouldn't carry at least some risk of hastening the collapse would be the strategically placed baffles, and it doesn't sound like those would probably work anyway.
Day, the guy I was talking about above, mentioned in his email message that the only feasible engineering project he could think of to address this situation would be to drain the groundwater out of the volcano, as one of the most likely causes of a collapse is the pressurization of trapped groundwater by intrusions. The problem with this, he relates, is that if you tried this there would be in inflow of saltwater, and apparently volcanic rock plus hot salt water is a great recipe for clay. Feet of clay is hardly the thing that this pile of rock needs, right about now.
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posted
Have they taken any steps such as banning pile driving near this volcano? I'd hate to see my childhood home under 20 feet of water because someone wants to put up a parking garage.
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To be honest, the best options right now that the goverment can undertake are probably a better infrastructure for warning, and detailed plans for dealing with it when it happens (linees of escape, how to get to everyone, this type of thing). But that's just my opinion.
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You know what's more frightening than a naturally occuring disaster? One that could be caused by the people studying them to try to stop them. Am I the only one who is frightened by the ESA's Don Quijote and NASA's Deep Impact missions? What if they accidentally send one of those things flying right into the earth?
(Remember, Chicken Little comes out this summer.)
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So*, what is it with The canary islands and geographic creepiness? This is a link on a Yahoo article about the earth's crust missing. Maybe someone already posted this, but for some reason it reminded me of the big scary rock thing.
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