Investigations continue into the exact course of events, but at around 6 am on Nov 28 enough rock to fill Vancouver’s BC Place stadium nine times slid a kilometre down a mountain and slammed into a lake at the base of a retreating glacier. The impact created a tsunami wave 100 metres high which broke the banks of the lake and bulldozed 13 kilometres down the mountain, destroying salmon rivers and smacking into the ocean at Bute Inlet.
The tsunami did not stop, creating a wide plume of mud and sediment that travelled 70 kilometres underwater into the Salish Sea — a shock to the marine system so immense it lowered deep-water temperatures by at least half a degree Celsius.
Scientists believe that as glaciers continue to retreat, a process accelerated by climate change, such events will become more common.
Read on in The Tyee …
