But the GCRC tweet with link to the Washington Post article seems to indicate they think it could be ice-related.Īnother theory is that the quake and tsunami were caused by a landslide. I have been trying to find more information on what the experts think caused this weekend’s particular event. “The tsunami is caused because the iceberg has to move a lot of water out of the way as it tips over”.Īrctic icebergs can displace a lot of water (Pic: I.Quaile, Greenland) She specifically mentions the tsunami effect: The Washington Post article quoted Meredith Nettles from Columbia, one of the co-authors. Worrying reading indeed, as GCRC wrote in their tweet. The result is a seismic event detectable across the Earth”. “When vast icebergs break off at the end of tidal glaciers, they tumble in the water and jam the glaciers themselves backwards. It says the loss of Greenland’s ice can generate “glacial earthquakes”. The article reports on a paper published in the journal Science at that time by researchers from Swansea University in the UK, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and several other institutions. “Giant earthquakes are shaking Greenland – and scientists just figured out the disturbing reason why.” But a tweet from the Greenland Climate Research Centre links to an article in the Washington Post from June 25 2015: The cause of the weekend’s event is still unclear. But in fact they are not as rare as you might think. Greenland is not the first place that comes to mind in connection with earthquakes and tsunamis. Buildings had been swept away, including the power station on the island of Nuugaatsiaq. Is gradual CO2 increase speeding up Greenland ice sheet melt? (Pic: I.Quaile)įollowing the news over the weekend with a trip to Greenland this summer at the back of my mind, my attention was immediately caught by reports of a tsunami and earthquake in Greenland.
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