How a nuclear armed terrorist could kill millions with a single bomb

[Walt Starr]

Yeah, I can be a sick dude when I think up this stuff, but hear me out.

A single nuclear device placed properly on La Palma Island in the Canaries could trigger a trillion ton landslide that would create a Tsunami wave that makes the Indian Ocean tsunami seem like a cannonball in a backyard swimming pool. It would affect Europe, the entire East Coast of the United States, the Carribean Islands, possibly South America, and Africa in one fell swoop.

The loss of life could be in the millions from such an event. Since there would be an absence of measurable seismic activity such as the volcanic blast that is currently theorized to be the trigger of such an event, there would be little warning of the tsunami either.

Should I be an action story novelist or what?

[dave123williams]

1. Yeah; the eastern seaboard would get decimated. Thanks.

Same thing could be true on the West Coast if Hawaii's big island had an implosion.

[Squatch]

2. Tom Clancey, is that you?

The only things you're missing are a stealth ship, a rogue general deposed from a sub-Saharan country, and a beautiful blonde assassinette.

[Walt Starr]

3. hee hee

:evilgrin:

Didn't Clancy write some novel where terrorists ran airplanes into a building?

[Squatch]

7. Yeah, but they were ill-tempered Japanese business men

[dmkinsey]

22. Yeah, the Capitol building

that story wiped out the House, Senate, President and VP

[sui generis]

4. why la palma island?

wouldn't a nuclear device capable of moving a trillion tons be rather difficult to make? Wouldn't it vaporize most of the trillion tons? Also, wouldn't the shock wave and fallout be much worse than the tidal wave?

That would be some serious nuclear deevice for a little dirty butt cellular terrorist to pull out of their turban.

[Walt Starr]

8. Because half of La Palma Island is teetering on the brink of landlside

and all it needs is one event to trigger the slide.

It's half of an active volcano and an eruption would trigger the landslide immediately. Proper placement of a nuclear device could also trigger such an event.

[sui generis]

15. okay I just read

720 klicks of surface area, a large part of that ramping to over 2000 meters, impressive.

Anyone engineers here want to take a stab at real tonnage and displacement? What does a cubic meter of volcanic island soil weigh? How many cubic meters would be shifted and how far?

[Squatch]

21. 1 m^3 of rock ~1 metric ton

very rough. 1 m^3 of galena would weigh a hell of a lot more than 1 m^3 of loam.

[sui generis]

31. so, uh, well short of a trillion tons, by almost a trillion

whew. that woulda been one big ass bomb.

[Walt Starr]

41. By comparison, Mt. St. Helens erupted with a blast of 24 megatons

That's 500 times more powerful than Hiroshima.

[King Coal]

It would make a 40 foot wave that would go 25 miles.

I'm not an engineer, but I stayed at La Quinta(Spanish for "Next to Denny's") last night.

:smoke:

[indigobusiness]

56. I speak Spanish

and I can verify the translation.

[King Coal]

79. Hey, a voucher! Cool.

[indigobusiness]

80. Only when

necessary.

[Kelvin Mace]

23. Actually, conventional explosive would do the trick...

you know, like the missing explosive from Iraqi ammo dump.

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Walt Starr]

32. EXCELLENT!

DU could give Clancy a run for his money!

[Kelvin Mace]

37. Right, who wants to knock it off

as a novel? We can have it in print in four weeks.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
www.plan9.org
www.blackboxvoting.com
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[madinmaryland]

5. I have my tin foil hat on!

:tinfoilhat:

I think it will probably be blamed on Clinton, though.

[Liberal Veteran]

14. That'll be the beautiful blonde assassinette from post 2 ----Hillary!

:)

[HereSince1628]

6. Are you asking for a ransom?

Or just trying to turn us into republicans?

[Walt Starr]

9. Make your time now

All your coast are belong to us!

:evilgrin:

[Squatch]

12. LOL

[Dogmudgeon]

10. You can relax now

It would take a LOT more than a single "low-tech" nuclear device to initiate a landslide at Cumbre Vieja volcano on Las Palmas.

First, the island isn't all that delicate. In geological terms, it's very close to turning into a landslide, but that still requires a lot more weakening of the foundation rock.

Second, while nukes are very nasty weapons, the Earth is far heavier, and most of the energy of the blast would be conducted away as monstrous acoustic waves. And the amount of energy released by a landslide like Cumbre Vieja could create is far, far more than 25 kilotons-equivalent.

Now, with more extensive geological mapping and five or six 1-megaton devices buried into the island at precise "triggering" locations, that novel might actually be sale-able ...

--p!

[Walt Starr]

17. Oh come on!

I mean, I've seen a lot of hoaky things in spy novels!

:evilgrin:

I doubt if even six well placed 1 megaton devices would pull it off, but I was actually hoping a Faux News person who might monitor this site would pick up on this and run with it.

:evilgrin:

[sui generis]

26. I love you Walt

in a purely platonic fashion, of course.

[indigobusiness]

42. Careful...it could blossom...

into something "special".

[Tacos al Carbon]

76. Don't you mean "tectonic?"

eom

[Kelvin Mace]

51. Actually, it will be the next

Homeland Security Alert.

Bets anyone?

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Pithy Cherub]

61. Can't quite work out which color would apply on this one....

Red in 5 minutes or a lusty pink rose to red in 5 hours...

[Kelvin Mace]

66. Deep brown

"color of our underpants".

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Kelvin Mace]

49. Never let facts get in the way of a story

Look at the DaVinci Code.

<g>

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Walt Starr]

57. Clancy never has

and look at how many novels he sells!

Crichton too!

[ashmanonar]

67. it seems as if people underestimate the strength of nuclear devices

nukes, depending on size and power, and on detonation trigger (very complicated machines, nukes) could do a great deal of damage to an island, especially if planted underground...a nuke, say around 1 megaton (which equals a million TONS of TNT) that is compressed under the ground could likely cause such an avalanche/tsunami

don't quote me on it, but the power of a nuke is surprising...

[Walt Starr]

68. A 1 megaton device would release about the same energy as

an earthquake at about 7.1 on the richter scale.

By comparison, Mount Saint Hlenes released as much energy as a 24 megaton blast, and right now it is estimated that the volcano would have to erupt in order to release the landslide.

Look at this photo and you can see why:

[Chimpanzee]

11. Christ, are you crazy man!??

OBL monitors this board! Thanks for NOTHING!!!:mad:

[benburch]

18. Yeah right...

Like he would risk connecting to DU from abroad! The NSA would have him in a flash.

He was smart enough to come up with the 9/11 attacks, and I think he is smart enough to come up with his own evil deeds in the future.

And I doubt he wastes his time on anything as just plain silly as DU can be much of the time just to find a nugget of an idea like this one.

[Walt Starr]

24. Especially when the physcial likelihood of actually pulling it off

is about null.

Fits in with the :tinfoilhat: stuff that's been posted here recently, though.

[benburch]

29. Exactly.

All of the nutty conspiracy theories serve to give cover to any real conspiracy that might actually be happening!

[HereSince1628]

19. Almost...Neocons monitor us and THEY send useful news to OBL

Without an enemy the defense industries have no brighter future in the US than blue jean manufacturers.

[Kelvin Mace]

25. Right, and NO ONE EVER

had such an idea.

Also, I am sure OBL has better things tro do than monitor this board.

Geez.

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Squatch]

30. OBL is a geologist, what?

[gordianot]

36. OBL and his minions already know after all many were educated here.

These are not uneducated people without vast resources and finance. I'm sure many have library cards.

[Chimpanzee]

45. I hope you all know I was joking!

[Kelvin Mace]

52. Good,

ya had me worried for a sec. <s>

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Walt Starr]

54. I've been thinking everybody on this thread had their tongues firmly

pressed in their cheeks.

:evilgrin:

[benburch]

13. Assuming of course a lot of things happen just right...

It is possible that all you would do is make a mess of La Palma! In fact, likely.

[Walt Starr]

28. Assuming that the laws of physics are still in play

most likely, part of La Palma would be a radioactive slag heap while the landlside sits there waiting for enough energy to actually release.

:evilgrin:

[benburch]

40. I dont think people understand, Walt.

They just don't understand how puny an H-bomb is when you compare it to a real geophysical event!

Mt St. Helen was reported to have about as much energy as 30,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs when it blew back in the 80s.

Think about that again.

30,000. Thats about 50 megatons. The size of the largest bomb ever detonated. (And such a weapon is not tiny at all! Imagine something the size of a five-ton truck. No way you will smuggle that anywhere in a suitcase even if the Russians let you have it!)

That's what it takes to shatter the side of a mountain and cause a pyroclastic flow/landslide.

[papau]

35. I agree - the potential energy into a wave transformation is not that easy

The bomb does minimal job as to making a wave unless it is in the water.


A 9.0 must carry a huge amount of energy into the sea (I have not done any calculations).

It is hard to see where or how a huge percent of that trillion tons falls into the sea rather than giving you a flatter Island.

[indigobusiness]

62. The configuration of La Palma

and the depth of water nearby provide the dynamic that worries those voicing concern. The potential is real.

[Walt Starr]

64. Yep, one that chunk of rock drops off into the ocean

it's all over for the Atlantic coastline.

Such a mega tsunami occurred from a landslide in Alaska in 1958. The wave waws taller than any building on the planet.

[indigobusiness]

65. 600 ft up the walls of the seaside mtns

is how high things washed up in Alaska, when it was hit.

[papau]

75. The discovery Channel show - and the UCSC paper - have been rejected.

The UCSC paper says http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~ward/papers/La_Palma_grl.pdf that A volcano west flank failure could put 150 to 500 km3 into the sea. At the max 500 km3, the wave that hits the Eastern US is 10 to 25 feet high, but Note that the 1971 volcanic eruption on La Palma in 1971 did not cause such a problem.

The paper below was released after the Discovery Channel Program:

The Discovery Channel has replayed a program on alleging potential destruction of coastal areas of the Atlantic by tsunami waves which might be generated in the near future by a volcanic collapse in the Canary Islands. Other reports have involved a smaller but similar catastrophe from Kilauea volcano on the island of Hawai`i. They like to call these occurences "mega tsunamis". We would like to halt the scaremongering from these unfounded reports. We wish to provide the media with factual information so that the public can be properly informed about actual hazards of tsunamis and their mitigation.


Here are a set of facts, agreed on by committee members, about the claims in these reports:


- While the active volcano of Cumbre Vieja on Las Palma is expected to erupt again, it will not send a large part of the island into the ocean, though small landslides may occur. The Discovery program does not bring out in the interviews that such volcanic collapses are extremely rare events, separated in geologic time by thousands or even millions of years.


- No such event - a mega tsunami - has occurred in either the Atlantic or Pacific oceans in recorded history. NONE.


- The colossal collapses of Krakatau or Santorin (the two most similar known happenings) generated catastrophic waves in the immediate area but hazardous waves did not propagate to distant shores. Carefully performed numerical and experimental model experiments on such events and of the postulated Las Palma event verify that the relatively short waves from these small, though intense, occurrences do not travel as do tsunami waves from a major earthquake.


- The U.S. volcano observatory, situated on Kilauea, near the current eruption, states that there is no likelihood of that part of the island breaking off into the ocean.


- These considerations have been published in journals and discussed at conferences sponsored by the Tsunami Society.

Some papers on this subject include:


"Evaluation of the threat of Mega Tsunami Generation From ....Volcanoes on La Palma ... and Hawaii", George Pararas-Carayannis, in Science of Tsunami Hazards, Vol 20, No.5, pages 251-277, 2002.


"Modeling the La Palma Landslide Tsunami", Charles L. Mader, in Science of Tsunami Hazards, Vol. 19, No. 3, pages 160-180, 2001.


"Volcano Growth and the Evolution of the Island of Hawaii", J.G. Moore and D.A.Clague, in the Geologic Society of America Bulletin, 104, 1992.


Committee members for this report include:


Mr. George Curtis, Hilo, HI (Committee Chairman) 808-963-6670
Dr. Tad Murty, Ottawa, Canada, 613-731-8900
Dr. Laura Kong, Honolulu, HI, 808-532-6422
Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis, Honolulu, HI, 808-943-1150
Dr. Charles L. Mader, Los Alamos, NM, 808-396-9855
and all can comment on this or other tsunami matters.


For information regarding the Tsunami Society and its publications, scientific papers on tsunamis, visit:

http://sthjournal.org/

[indigobusiness]

78. If they're so smart, why didn't they warn of the Sumatran tsunami?

Those morons oughta be flipping burgers.

[Stinky The Clown]

70. La Palma + Los Boom = La Poop

[Kelvin Mace]

16. The event would be far worse

in that it would cause global economic collapse. Pretty much the entire East coast of the US would be destroyed, including the entire city of New York, the world's major financial center.

Every major port would be lost, numerous power generators including some nuclear (anyone care to speculate the effect of a tsunami on a nuke plant?), communication centers would be destroyed, tens of millions dead and a like number homeless.

That's just the *start*.

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[shraby]

27. And to think Mother Nature

can do this all by herself without help.

[Walt Starr]

38. Actually, Mother Nature is far more capable

by about 500 times the energy released in a single event (assuming a Hiroshima sized event)!


Mount St. Helens erupted with the force of 24 megatons of TNT. That's 500 times larger than the device dropped on Hiroshima.

[gordianot]

20. High flying air burst with emp pulse would wreck the economy.

Modern electronics are not very robust. No one in their right mind tests above ground. All those SUV's with nowhere to go.

One dirty nuclear weapon at 30,000 ft. in the jet stream is too horrible to imagine.

[ashmanonar]

69. yea

that's the other thing that REALLY worries me...how hard would it be for any small terrorist group (i WON'T feed the rumor mill about al Qaeda or the others) to get even a small nuke? take it up in a private plane, 3000 feet up, say...or higher, doesn't matter...right in the middle of the country?

boom...the entire power grid of at least the midwest is just gone...and most likely wires would carry the pulse to the rest of america...

[Journeyman]

33. Here's a more frightening scenario, closer to home. . .

In this scenario, not as many die but the economic/human devastation is far greater, and the effects far more lasting. . .


As stories proliferate about Islamic terrorists crossing the Mexican border with nuclear devices, I've thought about where someone might go to create the most damage with a nuclear weapon yet minimize the fallout. A likely scenario is Glen Canyon Dam, which sits on a remote stretch of the Colorado River above the Grand Canyon.

Destruction of this dam would release the waters of Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made lakes on the planet (it stretches better than 180 miles behind the dam and reaches into countless coves and canyons). That much water, sweeping through the Grand Canyon all at once, would change the look of the canyon forever. It would also scour out millions of tons of rock and debris and send it cascading down river toward Lake Mead.

There would be so much rock and mud mixed with the flooding water, it would enter and sweep through Lake Mead as a solid, turgid mass. As big as Lake Mead is, it would pose little obstacle to this raging wall of solid water, which would barrel through the lake and hit Hoover Dam with a force far greater than the blast that destroyed Glen Canyon Dam.

Mixed with the rock and mud, and propelled by the added force of the released waters from Lake Mead, the broken chunks of Hoover Dam would be born down the river in a torrent of unimaginable fury, on a certain path to destroy the dams below -- Alamo, Parker, Painted Rock.

The destruction would be boundless, the impact unimaginable. With little loss of life (compared to a blast in an urban area), and minimal impact from fallout (though the waters would spread it far and wide), such a scenario would rob the West of as much as half of its water and a large percentage of its power generating capacity. It would take years to rebuild it -- if we even could, or would want to try. The cities of South California, Arizona and Nevada would empty soon, newly-created ghost towns of the West, the citizens dispersed in a frantic effort to find water and shelter from the spreading toxic waste.

With water for irrigation gone, millions of acres of farmland would become unproductive. Without the power from the dams' turbines, those who remained in the West would need to turn to other forms of power generation: coal and nuclear, with all their attendant problems and concerns. The impact would be global, both for the loss of the farmland and the foreboding sense of insecurity that would attach to all the world's dams -- and there are hundreds of thousands of them.

We can only hope adequate measures are being taken to avoid this scenario. From what I've heard and read, I suspect there's been little done to protect us from such an attack. And how could there be? Glen Canyon is but one of over 50,000 "major dams" in the United States. All told, there are more than a quarter million dams in the States, of all shapes, compositions, and sizes. How do we protect against everything that can happen and still remain a free people? That will be the question our grandchildren's grandchildren will continue to debate.

[papau]

39. Very real - and scary

:-(

[indigobusiness]

44. I live near one of the major dams...

and I see patrols of helicopter gunships, now and then.

Water is a weak link in the American infrastructre, to be sure.

[Walt Starr]

46. Far far worse would be this scenario

Simply remove the plutonium core from teh nuclear device and drop it in the center of Lake Mead.

Plutonium is the single most poisonous substance known to man.

[Kelvin Mace]

47. Yeah, but dams are *supposedly*

guarded. And again, it wouldn't take a nuke. A truck full of fertilizer and fuel oil will do the trick if you park it right.

Also, I think the destruction of the entire Eastern seaboard would be a bit more apocolyptic.

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Walt Starr]

50. Yeah, but people fish in the lakes

and dropping plutonium into a lake that supplies fresh water to a large part of the country would definitely be a noteworthy event.

[Squatch]

55. And can you imagine not having Havasu?!!?!

Oh, the humanity!!!



How would Matts Famous Chili Dogs (in the circle) feel about that?

[Squatch]

73. More wonders of Havasu (now threatened by terrists according

to this thread...)



I should probably go home.

[Walt Starr]

74. A Terrorist attack on THAT would be JUST PLAIN WRONG!

WRONG I SAY!!!!

WRONG!!!!!

[indigobusiness]

60. Mere ounces of mercury is all it takes to turn lakes

into "official" biohazards.

[indigobusiness]

34. That's been kicked around in discussions of La Palma...

One "expert" said he wasn't sure if a nuke could be placed in precisely enough of a critical point to trigger the slide, but that it might be possible (if they got "lucky").

[Massacure]

43. Here is an interesting site

http://www.geop.itu.edu.tr/~onur/seis/energy.html

The biggest known bomb made would be a little stronger than a magnitude 8.0 earthquake.

You probably would have to drill a pretty damn deep hole and backfill it with concrete once the nuke to make the place landslide though.

[indigobusiness]

Florida would be obliterated

if/when La Palma slides...however it is triggered.

[Walt Starr]

53. Yep, florida would be completely covered with water

Manhattan would be gone, and don't be thinking that being on an upper story of a large building would help as the energy from such a wave could likely bring down all of the tall buildings on the island.

[indigobusiness]

58. Most of the sand that makes up Florida would be washed away

Along with most structures, leaving only the coral backbone.

[Walt Starr]

48. Okay, let's call on Harry S. Stamper and the boys!

They can do the drilling!

NOTE: Must know Bruce Willis movies in order to get this one.

[DCDemo]

59. Something like this is has been a major concern of mine since 9-11

Al-Qaida like to use "force multipliers" in their attacks, often just by having simultaneous attacks, but in the case of the 9-11 attacks, by using box cutters to take down buldings.

A properly placed weak nuclear weapon (say a suitcase or artillery shell/torpedo) a few miles off shore could cause a huge tsunami and take out a city or a region.

And honestly, that's a much bigger bang-for-the-buck compared to the small, localised effects of the nuke going off in a city, and you can't really guard against it.

[Walt Starr]

63. A nuclear blast underwater

at best would mimic the effects of a 6.0 - 7.0 earthquake. what's required to actually trigger a tsunami is the movement of landmass.

Earthquakes occur very often underwater and never spawn a tsunami. The one in the Indian Ocean actually shifted the crust of the earth and it was that movement of landmass that spawned the tsunami.

That's why I used La Palma island as there is a trillion ton landslide waiting to happen there.

[patcox2]

71. What you have is an unproven theory.

So, it may work, but you have to admit, its not like its been tested (anyone ever trigger a massive underwater avalanche with a nuclear weapon before?)

On the other hand, detonating the bomb in manhattan or boston or milan or hong Kong would undoubtedly kill millions, proven fact. Why risk failure withn your only device?

[Walt Starr]

72. Actually, it's not underwater. It would be above water.

But please, read the thread before commenting further! I urge you strongly to do so!

[Solon]

77. It would have to be buried or underwater and in just the right spot...

A bomb, no matter how powerful would have to be very lucky to trigger the landslide you talk about from the surface of the island. Too much energy will be dispersed into the atmosphere, cause air is compressible and is not dense. A more effective method would be to us something alone the lines of a shaped charge that maximizes the amount of energy into the weak points of the rock, similar to prima cord used to take down buildings in demolition.

[Jesus H. Christ]

81. terrorism a la Rube Goldberg.

Boy, bin Laden would make a great James Bond villian. He'd have to tie up Bond and set the bomb before leaving the island in his stealth submarine.

[sal]

82. Dr. Evil tried that, didn't he?

?