{"id":24308,"date":"2017-06-19T06:33:45","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T06:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=24308"},"modified":"2017-06-19T10:55:31","modified_gmt":"2017-06-19T10:55:31","slug":"nuugaatsiaq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2017\/06\/19\/nuugaatsiaq\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuugaatsiaq: A large landslide-induced tsunami on Saturday night?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>Nuugaatsiaq: A large landslide-induced tsunami on Saturday night?<\/h5>\n<p>Late on Saturday the small community of Nuugaatsiaq in west Greenland was struck by a large but isolated tsunami.\u00a0 The aftermath of this event was captured on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UypXiIkPmdU\">Youtube video<\/a> that has been widely reported:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Earthquake Causes ATLANTIC TSUNAMI   Greenland Hit\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UypXiIkPmdU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Information about this event remains quite sketchy, but the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-europe-40320629\">English language media reports<\/a> indicate that four people may be missing.\u00a0 It appears that the local seismological bureau recorded the event as a magnitude 4.0 earthquake, with the tsunami striking a few minutes later.\u00a0 Greenland is not a particularly seismically-active area, and as far as I can tell this earthquake has not been recorded more widely.\u00a0 This, combined with the localised nature of the tsunami, suggest that the cause is most likely to have been a very large landslide, either from the fjord walls or under the water (or maybe both).\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/knr.gl\/da\/nyheder\/usikkert-om-det-er-jordsk\u00e6lv-eller-jordskred\">News reports in Greenland<\/a> (in Danish) also speculate that the cause may have been a mass movement:-<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"notranslate\">It is still uncertain what caused the devastating tidal wave that hit Nuugaatsiaq on Saturday night, says a seismologist from GEUS [The National Geological Surveys for Denmark and Greenland].\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"article-full__body text__body js-article-body\">\n<div class=\"field-type-text-with-summary\">\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"notranslate\"> &#8220;We have some signals at our earthquake stations resembling earthquakes, but they might also indicate that a landslide has been triggered,&#8221; says seismologist Peter Voss, from GEUS.\u00a0 He explains that GEUS has a theory that it is a major slope from a mountain that has triggered the tide of waves:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"notranslate\"> &#8220;The slump has made a large part of the mountain collapse into the fjord and has created this wave,&#8221; says Peter Voss.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"notranslate\"> But GEUS can not conclude anything from the measurements alone&#8230;He also tells that the landslide could have been underwater, and then it will be difficult to detect.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Clearly the priority yesterday was to provide assistance to the affected villages, but <a href=\"http:\/\/knr.gl\/da\/nyheder\/v\u00e6dderen-holder-\u00f8je-med-farligt-fjeld\">news reports indicate<\/a> that they will start to try to identify the source today.\u00a0 This is important, given the potential for a secondary failure if a landslide was the cause.<\/p>\n<p>This is the Google Earth image of the area affected by the tsunami:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_24312\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-24312\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24312\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2017\/06\/17_06-Nuugaatsiaq-1-e1497853516690.jpg\" alt=\"Nuugaatsiaq\" width=\"640\" height=\"396\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-24312\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google Earth image of the area affected by the Nuugaatsiaq tsunami<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully more information will emerge about this event today.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Late on Saturday, a substantial tsunami struck the village of Nuugaatsiaq in Greenland. The most likely cause would appear to be a very large landslide<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":24312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[469,5655,959,128],"class_list":["post-24308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","tag-featured","tag-greenland","tag-landslide-report","tag-tsunami"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}