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Scientists eventually tracked the source to Dickson Fjord, a narrow channel in eastern Greenland walled in by cliffs that tower roughly 3,000 feet above the water.<\/p>\n
Fresh satellite images<\/a> showed a new scar where a section of mountain had vanished. Something colossal had struck the water and set the fjord in motion<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mountain falls, Dickson Fjord rises<\/p>\n On September 16, 2023, more than 25 million cubic yards of rock and ice \u2013 enough to fill 10,000 Olympic-size pools \u2013 broke loose and plunged into Dickson Fjord.<\/p>\n The impact hurled up a mega-tsunami wave, reaching about 650 feet high. <\/p>\n The surge barreled down the two-mile corridor, bounced off the headland, and tore back again, wrecking roughly $200,000 in equipment at an empty research post on Ella Island<\/a>.<\/p>\n Water did not calm after the first pass. Instead, it began rocking from wall to wall, a motion known as a seiche. <\/p>\n Computer models later showed the surface rising as much as 30 feet, then sinking the same amount in a steady rhythm that pressed on the seafloor like a giant piston.<\/p>\n Crustal heartbeat at Dickson Fjord<\/p>\n Seismic stations normally record frantic scribbles during earthquakes. This time, the trace formed smooth peaks spaced a minute and a half apart and barely weakened over the better part of two weeks. <\/p>\n No seiche had ever produced such a persistent global signature. One modeling group pegged the slosh at about 8\u00bd feet; a second group estimated 23 to 30 feet. <\/p>\n The disagreement stemmed from different assumptions about Dickson fjord\u2019s shape, but both sets of simulations agreed on the source: the landslide-driven wave.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a big challenge to do an accurate computer simulation of such a long-lasting, sloshing tsunami,\u201d said Alice Gabriel of UC San Diego\u2019s Scripps Institution of Oceanography<\/a>.<\/p>\n The mystery drew seventy-plus researchers from forty-one institutions. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen we set out on this scientific adventure, everybody was puzzled and no one had the faintest idea what caused this signal,\u201d said Kristian Svennevig of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cAll we knew was that it was somehow associated with the landslide. We only managed to solve this enigma through a huge interdisciplinary and international effort.\u201d<\/p>\n Field teams measured fresh gouges high on the cliffs, while supercomputers recreated the avalanche\u2019s path and the fjord\u2019s response. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was exciting to be working on such a puzzling problem with an interdisciplinary and international team of scientists,\u201d said Robert Anthony of the U.S. Geological Survey<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, it took a plethora of geophysical observations and numerical modeling from researchers across many countries to put the puzzle together and get a complete picture of what had occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n Warming climate, melting glaciers<\/p>\n Glacier ice<\/a> once buttressed the failing slope, but warming air and ocean water have eaten away at that natural brace. <\/p>\n \u201cClimate change is shifting what is typical on Earth, and it can set unusual events into motion,\u201d Gabriel noted. <\/p>\n Similar instability elsewhere triggered a deadly tsunami in Karrat Fjord<\/a> in 2017 that destroyed eleven houses and claimed four lives.<\/p>\n Dickson Fjord sits near a popular cruise route. Though no passengers were present last year, the episode highlights rising risks as Arctic travel grows. <\/p>\n Authorities are now reviewing early-warning options that combine satellite feeds with real-time seismic data.<\/p>\n Satellites sharpen the picture<\/p>\n Conventional radar altimeters see only a thin line beneath each spacecraft. By contrast, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT<\/a>) mission launched in December 2022 maps a 30-mile-wide swath with 8-foot resolution. <\/p>\n \u201cClimate change is driving the emergence of unprecedented extremes, particularly in remote regions like the Arctic, where our ability to monitor conditions using traditional physical sensors is limited,\u201d explained Thomas Monahan of the University of Oxford<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSWOT represents a breakthrough in our ability to study oceanic processes in areas such as fjords \u2013 places that have long posed challenges for earlier satellite technologies,\u201d Monahan continued. <\/p>\n This study highlights how next-generation Earth observation satellites can transform scientific understanding of these dynamic environments.<\/p>\n \u201cThis study demonstrates how advanced satellite data can finally illuminate phenomena that have eluded us for years,\u201d remarked Professor Thomas Adcock, also from Oxford.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re now gaining new insights into oceanic extremes like tsunamis, storm surges, and rogue waves<\/a>. To fully harness the potential of these new datasets, we\u2019ll need to push the boundaries of both machine learning and our understanding of ocean physics,\u201d Adcock concluded.<\/p>\n Researchers are now combing through seismic archives looking for similar slow pulses, which may uncover other natural disasters from the past that evaded detection.<\/p>\n \u201cThis shows there is stuff out there that we still don\u2019t understand and haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d said Carl Ebeling of Scripps. <\/p>\n \u201cThe essence of science is trying to answer a question we don\u2019t know the answer to \u2013 that\u2019s why this was so exciting to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n Every new discovery will refine models of how slope failure, fjord geometry, and water depth interact. <\/p>\n Better forecasts could one day provide critical minutes of advance warning for ships and settlements in high-latitude waters. Even the quietest corners of the planet deserve a closer listen.<\/p>\n The full study was published in the journal Science<\/a> and Nature Communications<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, Greenland\u2019s rugged eastern coast sat in near silence. Then, in an instant, seismic sensors around the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-675013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Copernicus](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/greenland-mega-tsunami_650-feet_dickson-fjord_landslide_Sentinel-2_ESA_1s.webp\")
<\/a>Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite image pinpointing the mega-tsunami location at Dickson Fjord in East Greenland. Click image to enlarge. Credit: ESA\/Thomas Monahan. Click image to enlarge.Investigators follow the clues<\/p>\n![\"Copernicus](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/greenland-mega-tsunami650-feet_dickson-fjord_landslide-debris_Sentinel-2_ESA_1s.webp\")
<\/a>Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite image of the Dickson Fjord in East Greenland after the mega-tsunami, with the observed sea-surface height measurements from the SWOT satellite of the Earth-shaking wave on October 11th overlaid. Click image to enlarge. Credit: ESA\/Thomas Monahan. Click image to enlarge.Dickson Fjord and disaster forecasting<\/p>\n