Liverpool, United Kingdom

In a crazy discovery, the University of Liverpool's news researchers found what led to the evolution of a gigantic underwater avalanche around 60,000 years ago and how it led to destruction. 

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More than 300 core samples taken from the seafloor of the Atlantic Ocean off the North West coast of Africa more than 40 years ago were used by the team.

The scientists combined the area's bathymetry and seismic data and created a map of the avalanche as it turned from a small underwater landslide into a devastating climactic event.

“This is the first time anyone has managed to map out an entire individual underwater avalanche of this size and calculate its growth factor,” said Chris Stevenson, who is co-leader of the team and a sedimentologist from the University of Liverpool’s School of Environmental Sciences, in a statement. 

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“What is so interesting is how the event grew from a relatively small start into a huge and devastating submarine avalanche,” he added, further explaining, “reaching heights of 200 meters [656 feet] as it moved at a speed of about 15 m/s [49 feet/second] ripping out the sea floor and tearing everything out in its way.”

How destructive was the underwater avalanche mapped by scientists?

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The ancient underwater avalanche, which has been mapped by scientists, started at only 1.5 cubic kilometres (0.36 cubic miles) in volume, but later it turned massive and became a huge and powerful avalanche that eventually eroded one of the largest submarine canyons in the world, which was known as the Agadir Canyon, along with almost 4,500 square kilometres (1,738 square miles) of the canyon walls.

“To put it in perspective: that’s an avalanche the size of a skyscraper, moving at more than 40 mph [64 kmph] from Liverpool to London, which digs out a trench 30 m [98 feet] deep and 15 km [9.3 miles] wide, destroying everything in its path,” said Stevenson.

“Then it spreads across an area larger than the UK, burying it under about a metre of sand and mud," he added.

Speaking about the study, the head of Marine Geophysics at Kiel University, Sebastian Krastel, said, “Our new insight fundamentally challenges how we view these events."

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“Before this study, we thought that big avalanches only came from big slope failures. But now, we know that they can start small and grow into extremely powerful and extensive giant events," he added.

The scientists noted that the prehistoric avalanche grew by around 12-25 times larger than a normal avalanche.

“We calculate the growth factor to be at least 100,” said Christoph Bottner, who is the co-leader of the team and a Marie-Curie research fellow at Aarhus University in Denmark. 

“We have also seen this extreme growth in smaller submarine avalanches measured elsewhere,” said Bottner. “So we think this might be a specific behaviour associated with underwater avalanches and is something we plan to investigate further," he added. 

(With inputs from agencies)