Landslide occurs under the sea off the coast of Antarctica due to climate change, a huge tsunami may occur, and many lives may be lost – GIGAZINE

The Geological Survey of Antarctica reports that traces of huge tsunamis caused by a landslide in Antarctica have been found in layers from 3 million years ago and 15 million years ago. According to the newspaper, huge tsunamis flooded South America, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, and researchers warn that similar phenomena may occur if sea temperatures rise due to climate change in the future.

Submarine landslides under climate control on the continental margin of Antarctica | Nature Communications
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38240-y

Underwater landslides caused by climate change could spawn giant tsunamis from the Antarctic | live science
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/antarctica/climate-change-could-trigger-gigantic-deadly-tsunamis-from-antarctica-new-study-warns

The first recorded landslide in Antarctica was in 2017 off the coast of Antarctica.Sea RossIt was first discovered in The layer contains a layer of ‘loose sediment’ filled with phytoplankton fossils, which is thought to indicate a landslide.

In 2018, the research team drilled again deep into the sea floor in the Ross Sea and collected a ‘sediment core’ that hollowed out the layer into an elongated columnar shape. Analysis of this sediment core indicates that the bulk sediment layernew eraabout 3 million years ago,myosinIt also found that the sea water temperature around Antarctica was about 3 degrees Celsius warmer than it is today over the same period. It is believed that this rise in sea temperature gave rise to algae that died and became sediment, and that melting glacial ice caused by global warming lightened the load on the plates around Antarctica, causing landslides.

“The loose sediment layer is a cold climate,” said Robert McKay, director of the Antarctic Research Center at Victoria University of Wellington and co-principal scientist for International Marine Exploration Expedition 374, which excavated the sediment core in 2018. It was between the ice ages and was covered with a thick layer of coarse gravel carried by glaciers and icebergs.”

The research team said: “ There are many sediments buried at the bottom of the Antarctic sea, and the glaciers on the surface are gradually melting. Even today, when seawater melt is seen as a problem, there is still the possibility of another tsunami. Because of the landslide caused by the submarine.”

It is not known how massive the massive tsunami was caused by this submarine-induced landslide hundreds of years ago. However, there have been recent cases of tsunamis caused by undersea landslides. Canadian in 1929Newfoundland IslandThe tsunami caused by a landslide near the submarine reached 13 meters in height and killed about 28 people. The 15-metre tsunami that hit Papua New Guinea in 1998 resulted in a submarine landslide that killed about 2,200 people.