Mysterious global tremors traced back to the colossal Greenland tsunami
In September 2023, seismographs worldwide recorded mysterious vibrations in the Earth's crust. It took a year to determine their source: a gigantic 360-foot tsunami. The water destroyed a research station in Greenland.
5:09 PM EDT, September 22, 2024
Unusual vibrations in the Earth's crust were noted in September 2023. The signal traveled the distance between Greenland and Antarctica in less than an hour and then resonated for the next nine days. Although it was recorded worldwide, pinpointing its source and cause proved challenging.
A year of research and analysis, including satellite images, helped solve the mystery. The unusual phenomenon was caused by a gigantic tsunami in one of Greenland's fjords.
The root cause of the phenomenon is climate disaster. Due to the temperature rise, the rock mass, along with the glacier towering over the Dickson Fjord, lost stability and collapsed into the water. Suddenly, 25 million cubic meters (32.7 million cubic yards) of rock and ice fell into the fjord, which American authors vividly, though imprecisely, compared to the 10 pyramids of Giza.
The mass of rocks falling into the water in the narrow fjord caused a spectacular tsunami. Since the water was trapped between two slopes, the tsunami wave reached a height of 360 feet (some sources even mention 660 feet).
It did not cause significant damage to humans, as the fjord is uninhabited. By a lucky coincidence, none of the tour ships that often visit the fjord were present at the time.
The wave quickly flattened, but because it couldn't disperse its energy, the wave motion within the fjord lasted for several days, which seismographs worldwide recorded. Parallel to the tsunami within the fjord, another 13-foot wave was noted that destroyed the empty research station on Ella Island.
