Aran Islands, Ireland

Aran Islands, Ireland

The Aran Islands just off the coast of Ireland left geologists puzzled for a while now.

On top of this cliff huge boulders are found. Up to now the only explanation for waves energetic enough to transport these rocks would be a tsunami. Unfortunately, at least for the explanation, no tsunami happened there since 1755.

Now oceanography has a possible explanation for this phenomenon. Waves deflected off the steep coast can contribute to other incoming waves, accelerating these waves upwards. It just takes a decent storm to account for these boulders and the special physics of an ocean close to this cliff of the Aran Islands.

Read more: http://bit.ly/Jrybcx
-JSD

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... is a geophysicist by heart. He works at the intersection of machine learning and geoscience. He is the founder of The Way of the Geophysicist and a deep learning enthusiast. Writing mostly about computational geoscience and interesting bits and pieces relevant to post-grad life.

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