8 ms·
Wouldn't that cause a tsunami?
by miguelpais 16y ago
Wouldn't that cause a tsunami?
- arethuza 16y agoSome nuclear weapons had relatively small yields - as low as 10 tons of TNT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munit...
- miguelpais 16y agoDo not call the Russians then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
- barmstrong 16y agoWoa - that was a big bomb. 35km blast radius.
- Groxx 16y agoIs it just me, or is there a fair bit of inconsistency on that page? Notably, the fireball is listed as being: 8km diameter, 3.5km radius, and 2.3km radius. could have caused third degree burns 100 km (62 miles) away That's big, all right. Wow.
- anigbrowl 16y agoIt would depend on how far down the bomb was placed. There are a lot of nuclear test craters in Nevada, in fact there's a museum in Las Vegas about it which is very interesting. But most of those craters were from explosions only hundreds of feet deep (back then the environmental risks of nuclear testing were not as widely appreciated). This image from FAS suggests that below 1000' the surface disturbance and resulting water displacement would be minimal: http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/sm_crater_depth.gif http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/sm_crater_depth.gif
- yummyfajitas 16y agoPhysics problem: Assume of a wave of water 1 meter wide, 3 meters tall, and which hits at least 80% of the coastline of the gulf of mexico. Compute the gravitational potential energy in this wave. Now compare to the energy of a nuke. (I haven't bothered to do this calculation. But last time I did it, when dispelling conspiracy theories about the last tsunami, it was several orders of magnitude too small.)