ScienceDaily. .Florida State University. Submarine landslides and tsunamis along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts are rare, but the risks associated with these natural hazards are high. Imagine this as a mountain avalanche under the water. To that end, the CMHRP has completed quantitative assessments of submarine landslides for the U.S. Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida and throughout the Gulf of Mexico. With the question and the concern, I looked into the details of these seismic sources and eventually concluded that they are likely to be submarine landslides. The gulf is shallow at the coast but very deep in the middle! "Unknown submarine landslides discovered in Gulf of Mexico." A seismic mystery in the Gulf Scientists long have known the Gulf of Mexico has a history of submarine landslides. Two obvious ways: an earthquake or a landslide below the surface. The coast of southern Mexico was rattled by … The water is displaced from above with the human body taking the place of the water, so the water has to go somewhere! In fact, tsunami footage in this part of the world exists. "There are few active faults in the Gulf, and the seismicity is scarce in the region," he said. That can be pretty serious.The Mississippi River continues to slowly but surely dump sediment into the Gulf. Notice that their leading paragraph does indicate “a very low threat." Tsunami propagation from significant earthquake sources outside the Gulf of Mexico, such as the northern Panama Convergence Zone, Northern South America, Cayman Trough, the Puerto Rico trench, or the Gibraltar area shows that wave amplitude is greatly attenuated by the narrow and shallow passages into the gulf, and as a result, these tsunami sources do not constitute a tsunami hazard to … In 1780, for example, at least 10 people died because of one. Dr. Juan Horrillo is an associate professor and leader of the Tsunami Research Group (TRG) at Texas A&M University at Galveston. A tsunami in this region could affect more than 35 million people on the islands of the Greater and Lesser Antilles and along the east and Gulf coasts of … Look at the bathymetry and how deep the GOM, Gulf of Mexico, becomes in the middle:So it’s easy to understand how a sediment landslide, or avalanche, into the deeper part could suddenly displace water and push it to the coast: a tsunami. The most recent example of a tsunami in the Gulf of Mexico happened in 1946, when a magnitude 8.1 earthquake ripped through the Dominican Republic and ultimately killed more than 1,800 people. The ability to detect and locate these submarine landslides suggests that scientists may be able to adapt researchers' methods for hazard monitoring in the future though.Get the latest science news with ScienceDaily's free email newsletters, updated daily and weekly. That led him to seismic sources in the Gulf of Mexico. Questions?Florida State University. In the Gulf, thousands of years of sediment piles up (like the snow) until the weight causes a sudden landslide (avalanche) of the sediment into deeper waters. Unknown submarine landslides discovered in Gulf of Mexico.Florida State University. Before high-tech tsunami information was available, people who lived along the gulf coast and in Caribbean nations had no way of knowing that one had occurred until it arrived on their shores. The intraplate earthquake measured 5.8 on the moment magnitude scale and its epicenter was located about 250 miles (400 km) west-southwest of Anna Maria, Florida. But any threat is a threat and worth exploring and understanding!Prayers to the folks suffering from both the recent Puerto Rico and Caribbean earthquakes.Copyright 2020 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved.KPRC 2's chief meteorologist with three decades of experience forecasting Houston's weather.If you need help with the Public File, call (713) 778-4745. It is challenging to determine the probability of occurrence of a tsunami or submarine landslide, as well as its location and scale. But not the Gulf--we don’t have an earthquake zone and are protected by other landmasses. (2020, May 18). The water has to go somewhere and that somewhere is on land. 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