An underwater landslide that occurred 500 years ago in the Red Sea region caused waves of up to 10 meters at the time. In this sense, a scientist recently discovered geological instability in the locality, which ignited the warning of future tsunamis that could affect countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
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The study was organized by the University of Miami, and scientist Sam Purkis, chairman of the Department of Marine Geosciences at the University, spent four weeks aboard a research vessel in the region.
Purkis was coming up from a deep dive with a colleague, also a scientist, when he noticed a break in the sea floor that, according to him, is surprising. In that sense, it was a discovery that, while unexpected, was not out of the question for the Red Sea.
The team was exploring the Strait of Tiran, which is 900 meters deep, but they noticed a steep slope of eight meters high, as well as a chasm of three meters wide, in front of the portion of Earth.
According to the scientist, a simple shake in the wrong place can cause the entire wall to fail, causing a tsunami greater than that of 500 years ago. With this, the region of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which have been urbanizing, may run risks that need to be recognized in order to avoid future catastrophes.
The Red Sea is a gulf of the Indian Ocean, located between Africa and Asia. In this way, it communicates with the Indian Ocean through Babelmandeb and the Gulf of Aden. Furthermore, it arises from the separation of Arab and African tectonic plates 30 million years ago.
The largest tsunami ever recorded occurred in July 1958 on the Fairweather fault line. Thus, there was a 7.8 magnitude seaquake that greatly shook the Lituya Bay region in Alaska. Anyway, the event caused the slide of 90 million tons of blocks of ice and rocks.