Global seismographs reveal Greenland tsunami after a year of research

In September 2023, seismographs worldwide recorded mysterious vibrations in the Earth's crust. It took a year to determine their source, a gigantic 110-metre tsunami that destroyed a research station in Greenland.

Unusual vibrations of the Earth's crust were noted in September 2023. The signal travelled the distance between Greenland and Antarctica in less than an hour and then resonated for the next nine days. Although it was recorded globally, pinpointing its source and cause proved challenging.

A year of research and analysis, including satellite images, helped solve the mystery. It turned out that the unusual phenomenon resulted from a gigantic tsunami in terms of height, which occurred in one of Greenland's fjords.

The root cause of the phenomenon is climate disaster. Due to the rise in temperature, the rock mass, along with the glacier towering over the Dickson Fjord, lost stability and collapsed into the water. Suddenly, 25 million cubic metres (33 million cubic yards) of rock and ice fell into it, which American authors vividly, though imprecisely, compared to the 10 pyramids of Giza.

The mass of rocks falling into the water in the narrow fjord caused a spectacular tsunami. Since the water was trapped between two slopes, the tsunami wave was as high as 110 metres (some sources even mention 200 metres).

It did not cause significant damage to humans, as the fjord is uninhabited, and by a fortunate coincidence, there were no tour ships inside the fjord at the time.

The wave quickly flattened, but because it couldn't disperse its energy, the wave motion within the fjord lasted for the ensuing days, which seismographs around the world recorded. Parallel to the tsunami within the fjord, another 4-metre wave was noted that destroyed the empty research station on Ella Island.