Nuclear tsunami?

[rtwngAvngr]

Not an expert on the matter by any stretch of the imagination...

I do remember reading about the Bikin1 Atoll detonations in the 50's and it seems to me there were no tidal waves associated with them. Not sure if the detonations were underwater or what.

I do know something of electronics however and detonating the thing underwater does have it's challenges...obviously they are not insurmountable, but you sure as hell cant just light it with a match!

In the link I found there is some reference to a tidal wave cause by an explosion in wwI. Don't know the details.

Why do you think I'm getting such resistance on this topic? Everyone wants to just dismiss it, even when they admit they don't know what they're talking about.

 

[CSM]

In the link I found there is some reference to a tidal wave cause by an explosion in wwI. Don't know the details.

Why do you think I'm getting such resistance on this topic? Everyone wants to just dismiss it, even when they admit they don't know what they're talking about.

I am not dismissing it at all....I am questioning the feasability... but that is more due to technical considerations than anything.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

I am not dismissing it at all....I am questioning the feasability... but that is more due to technical considerations than anything.

I was more referring to others. It's ok to question the feasibility. I think it's very feasible. It's happened before.

Who would have imagined two planes would bring down the trade towers? I guess our feasiblity studies didn't get that one.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

All. I know it's hard to change your position when you've staked it out hard and early. But let's just be reasonable.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Is there a seismologist in the house?

 

[Zhukov]

a.) you would have to dig about 10km into the earth, near a fault line

b.) insert a bomb about the size of a four bedroom house

c.) put all the dirt back, and pack it down

d.) detonate the bomb



That would be hard to do without us noticing I think.

 

[Abbey Normal]

You might enjoy Michael Crichton's latest book, State of Fear, in which has ecoterrorists attempting somewhat similar feats off the coast of California.

Although it is fiction, Crichton also argues against the notion that there is global warning.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

a.) you would have to dig about 10km into the earth, near a fault line

b.) insert a bomb about the size of a four bedroom house

c.) put all the dirt back, and pack it down

d.) detonate the bomb



That would be hard to do without us noticing I think.

I'm not sure one would necessarily HAVE to cause a seismic event. I think a nuke could create an energy wave capable throwing up enough waves.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Could Nuclear testing create a tsunami??

This is a difficult topic to research, because much of the information surrounding nuclear testing is classified. ?During the Cold War there was fear of tsunamis produced by the detonation of nuclear bombs on the ?continental shelf off the East Coast of the US. A nuclear bomb was never detonated on the shelf, however a ?huge explosion did generate a tsunami during World War I. Any large disturbance that displaces a large ?volume of water can be a potential cause of a tsunami. ?

http://www.sles-riyadh.org/tsunami.htm

Come on guys. It's possible.

 

[USViking]

Underwater nuclear testing has been performed;
see this link:

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/nukeffct/enw77b2.htm

(quote from the link):
"The disturbance created by the underwater burst caused a series of waves to move outward from the center of the explosion across the surface of Bikini lagoon. At 11 seconds after the detonation, the first wave had a maximum height of 94 feet and was about 1,000 feet from surface zero. This moved outward at high speed and was followed by a series of other waves. At 22,000 feet from surface zero, the ninth wave in the series was the highest with a height of 6 feet.

It has been observed that certain underwater and water surface bursts have caused unexpectedly serious flooding of nearby beach areas, the depth of inundation being sometimes twice as high as the approaching water wave. The extent of inundation is related in a complex manner to a number of factors which include the energy yield of the explosion, the depth of burst, the depth of the water, the composition and contour of the bottom, and the angle the approaching wave makes with the shoreline (emphasis added)."

I think the uncertainty of the effects
and the complexity of the logistics would
pretty well rule out any interest the bastards
might have in an underwater explosion.

I would much rather they try that than
set one off on the ground.

 

[Zhukov]

I'm not sure one would necessarily HAVE to cause a seismic event. I think a nuke could create an energy wave capable throwing up enough waves.

Well, then the nuclear weapon would have to displace all the water by itself, and would therefore probably need to be magnitudes larger. Like an office building....

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Well, then the nuclear weapon would have to displace all the water by itself, and would therefore probably need to be magnitudes larger. Like an office building....

Wow that's a big missile! (That's what she said.)

Does bomb strength correlate 1:1 with size? (or is it the motion of the ocean)

 

[Zhukov]

No, there is no exact correlation. Different configurations detonate more efficiently so that you could have two bombs of roughly the same warhead weight, but one might be 25-33% more powerful.

But our hypothetical office-building-sized-nuke wouldn't really be one nuke anyways. It would need to be a few hundred (maybe thousand) smaller nukes crammed together and all triggered to go off simultaneously. If you just built one big warhead most of the core probably wouldn't get compacted enough and would instead just be blasted all over the place.

What causes a tsunami is displacement. The moving of ocean floor ten feet displaces an awful lot of water. So what you want to do is create a shock wave from an explosion to displace that much water. That is going to need to be one enormous explosion.

Or a series of explosions.

It would probably be easier to simultaneously detonate a whole string of nuclear weapons, in spaced intervals, along the mid-Atlantic ridge. That would still take several hundred very large bombs though.

Might have been a good idea for a Soviet sneak attack, but I don't think its within the technological capabilities of terrorists.

They are probably working with a shortage of fissile material, not an abundance of it. Therefore their best bet would be to divide up the material they have, construct several small conventional bombs ,and jacket them with the fissile material (a dirty bomb), detonate them in lots of cities, and hope to irradiate as many people as possible.

If I were a terrorist I'd save one nuclear device for the capital, and maybe one for NYC, and try to irradiate large portions of 7 or 8 other cities (LA, Miami, Seattle, Boston, San Fran, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago). And I'd do it all via cargo ship.

And I'd try to hit the strategic oil reserve too.

 

[Zhukov]

Alright....might be hard to get a cargo ship to Atlanta....

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Alright....might be hard to get a cargo ship to Atlanta....

I'd still rather live by the beach! You know, we need to smoke a j sometime.

 

[USViking]

I'm sure everyone here is capable of absorbing
technical details, so I guess you guys just
over looked the straight dope I posted earlier.

Nuclear weapons HAVE been tested underwater,
and they HAVE produced waves (at 20 Kiloton yield. Hiroshima was 15 KT).


Let me repost it:

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/nukeffct/enw77b2.htm

(quote from the link):
"The disturbance created by the underwater burst caused a series of waves to move outward from the center of the explosion across the surface of Bikini lagoon. At 11 seconds after the detonation, the first wave had a maximum height of 94 feet and was about 1,000 feet from surface zero. This moved outward at high speed and was followed by a series of other waves. At 22,000 feet from surface zero, the ninth wave in the series was the highest with a height of 6 feet.

It has been observed that certain underwater and water surface bursts have caused unexpectedly serious flooding of nearby beach areas, the depth of inundation being sometimes twice as high as the approaching water wave. The extent of inundation is related in a complex manner to a number of factors which include the energy yield of the explosion, the depth of burst, the depth of the water, the composition and contour of the bottom, and the angle the approaching wave makes with the shoreline" (all emphasis added).

I think the uncertainty of the effects
and the complexity of the logistics would
pretty well rule out any interest the bastards
might have in an underwater explosion.

I would much rather they try that than
set one off on the ground.

 

[pegwinn]

then why blithely dismiss the notion?

Who said I dismissed anything? I said it wouldn't be easy. I said it'd be tough to figure out. I said that likely they'd do something easier. Reading is fundamental.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Who said I dismissed anything? I said it wouldn't be easy. I said it'd be tough to figure out. I said that likely they'd do something easier. Reading is fundamental.

It's very possible. I don't even think the calculations need to be that precise. I think you overhyped these points to achieve your dismissal.

If you want to tell someone to work on their reading it's funnier if you put this link:

http://www.rif.org

 

[Zhukov]

"The disturbance created by the underwater burst caused a series of waves .....11 seconds after the detonation, the first wave had a maximum height of 94 feet and was about 1,000 feet from surface zero

We all understand explosions underwater would cause a wave, but a 94 foot wave a football field away from a nuclear explosion does not a tsunami make.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

We all understand explosions underwater would cause a wave, but a 94 foot wave a football field away from a nuclear explosion does not a tsunami make.

Yes. Let's just call it a big wave then. Plus, it could be bigger than past waves create d ACCIDENTALLY.

It's happened accidentally. Ponder that.