Newfoundland Spring

One February several years ago I was invited to give a presentation at the “Spring Meeting” of a Geological Club in Saint John’s Newfoundland. I arrived to face freezing rain and three inches of ice coating every possible exterior surface. I learn later that the “Spring Meeting” handle was an example of Newfoundland humor. I guess that same humor explains why Newfoundland Standard Time is GMT less  three  --- AND ONE HALF --- hours.

Apart from the Club presentation, I was asked to give a public lecture on tsunami at the local University.  To my surprise, the entire auditorium was packed. Turns out that Newfoundland has a personal relationship with tsunami. Back in 1929, there was an earthquake under the sea to the south.   A tsunami associated with the quake struck the south coast of Newfoundland, caused widespread damage as well as 27 fatalities. Seems like half of the folks in the Saint John’s audience had a relative or friend who was somehow affected by the wave.

Any seismologist in graduate school can’t help but know of The 1929 Grand Banks Earthquake, being one of the few dozen quakes that have a special place in all textbooks on the subject.  Apart from its odd location in a seismically quiet region, the quake merited special notation because it generated an undersea debris flow. The flow ran out several 100 km and its progress was tracked by the location and timing of many snapped transatlantic telegraph cables.  How cool is that?   Cooler still is the fact that the tsunami that all Newfoundlanders know was actually stirred by the debris flow and not the earthquake directly.

I suppose that a Newfoundland Spring has its talking points, but for a February meeting,  I’ll take Santa Cruz.

Steven N. Ward  Santa Cruz