Many layers of sedimentary rock are still buried beneath Antarctica’s seafloor, and glaciers are slowly melting, so landslides and tsunamis may occur again in the future.
Climate change could trigger giant tsunamis in the Southern Ocean, triggering underwater landslides in Antarctica. Space reported this with reference to a study by British scientists published in the journal Nature Communications.
In particular, scientists have discovered that during past periods of global warming in Antarctica, sedimentary layers of rocks formed and slipped, causing massive tsunami waves to run along the coasts of South America, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.
And as climate change warms the oceans, researchers believe these tsunamis are likely to reappear and cause significant loss of life.
For the first time, researchers found evidence of long-term erosion along Antarctica’s coast in 2017 in the eastern Ross Sea. They found layers of weak sedimentary rock filled with fossilized sea creatures known as phytoplankton.
In 2018, scientists returned to the site and drilled deep into the seafloor to uncover sediment cores — long, thin cylinders of earth’s crust that reveal, layer by layer, the geological history of the region.
After studying the sedimentary cores, scientists found that the layers were formed during two periods: about three million years ago during the warm period of the mid-Pliocene, and the second – about 15 million years ago, also during a warming climate.
During these times, the waters around Antarctica were three degrees Celsius warmer than today, leading to explosions of algae blooms that, after dying, filled the sea floor with rich, slippery sediment, making the region is prone to landslides.
The exact cause of past underwater landslides in the region is unknown, but researchers have discovered the most likely cause: glacier melting due to climate warming.
These landslides caused earthquakes, and those, in turn, caused other landslides, which resulted in tsunamis.
It is noted that the size and scale of ancient ocean waves are unknown, but scientists note that the 1929 tsunami in the Grand Banks, which raised waves 13 meters high, killed almost 28 people. The 1998 tsunami in Papua New Guinea, which raised waves 15 meters high, killed 2,200 people.
It was previously reported that the outlying islands of Tonga were hit hard by a powerful volcanic eruption and tsunami.
Source: korrespondent
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