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Geologists from the California Geological Survey are concerned that a giant tsunami could strike Lake Tahoe at any moment with “devastating consequences. We have reported on this previously, Lake Tahoe Tsunami | It’s Happened Before, It Will Happen Again…, but a new story on capradio.org sheds some light on what steps are being taken to better predict when the tsunami might strike again.

Thousands of years ago a powerful earthquake shifted the ground beneath Lake Tahoe 12 to 20 feet vertically, spawning a giant tsunami.

That’s what geologists believe happened, but they don’t know the details, or the exact magnitude.

“The thing that does have us somewhat concerned here at Lake Tahoe is that the last large earthquake appears to have happened about 4,000 years ago,” says Gordon Seitz with the California Geological Survey. “That’s about the average return time.”

Seitz says if it were to happen again the tsunami would have devastating consequences.

“That wave would travel around the entire lake, and because the lake is shaped sort of like a bathtub, it would bounce back and forth off the different shores, for hours,” says Seitz.

The only way to learn more is to go where no one has gone before, 1,000 feet down to the lake’s deepest fault line.

On a barge on the western side of Lake Tahoe, crews hoist a one-ton, 28 foot cylindrical submarine with a crane into the cold water.

Keep reading at capradio.org

Related Post: Lake Tahoe Tsunami | It’s Happened Before, It Will Happen Again…

[Image by, Vancour]

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