650-foot tsunami in Greenland made waves for days, scientists find

A 650-foot tsunami in Greenland was the result of melting glacial ice that caused a landslide. The waves it created bounced back and forth for nine days.

Last September, seismologists around the world detected vibrations unlike any they’d picked up before. A monotonous hum seemed to be emanating from Greenland. It would last for nine days. 

“This very, very weird signal showed up that I’d never seen before at some of our stations in the North,” said Carl Ebeling, a seismologist with the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 

Soon after the vibrations began, a cruise ship sailing near fjords in Greenland noticed that on the remote Ella Island, a key landmark — a base used for scientific research and by the Danish military for sled dog patrols — had been destroyed. 

The events drew an international group of seismologists, the Danish military and oceanographers into the mystery: What had struck the island, and where did it come from? 

On Thursday, researchers released their conclusions in the journal Science. The island had been hit by one of the biggest tsunamis ever recorded, they said, with waves that left a watermark about 650 feet high.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/650-foot-tsunami-greenland-rcna170322

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