Severn River Tsunami?

Hello All,

I watched a programme on BBC 2 last light. It was throwing more light on the 1607 storm surge in the River Severn. Two scientists have come forward to claim that this surge was less to do with a storm, but could have been a tidal wave.

In case anyone who watched this programme became anxious, especially those living by the Severn - these results were inconclusive, and were concentrating only on that region. Contemporary reports at the time suggested that the river overflowed out to the marshes and within the local vicinity. Tidal waves are caused by earthquakes out at sea, and require either destructive plate margins or rockfalls caused by undersea earthquakes. They travel for many hundreds of miles. Storm surges e.g the Severn Bore, do not travel hundreds of miles - they are caused by the Moon and tides and are confined to local areas along the river, as this surge was. They can mimic tidal waves, but they don't have the power of real tidal waves, and are less destructive. They mostly cause lots of damage rather than loss of life on a huge scale.

The scientists put forward a reason for the supposed 'tsunami' i.e. an old fault in the Irish Sea. Whilst this fault exists, it is nowhere near powerful enough to create a devastating tidal wave. If it had done in 1607, large parts of Southern Ireland, the West and South coastal regions of England, Northern France and coastal areas in the North Sea would have been affected. The scientists did not expand on the tidal wave theory, concentrating only on the River Severn. Soil samples were taken, but one would expect to find large quantities of salt within the soil, but no salt was apparently found. Sea shells were, but large storms can wash sea shells onto land, and they are powerful enough to shift large boulders.

We don't live anywhere near a destructive plate margin, so we are not at risk of a tsunami enveloping us. I wanted to put in an opposing view to the one presented last night and to keep a sense of proportion about what tidal waves are, what causes them, and how they behave.

Love,
Patsy.
xxxx
P.S Last year's floods at Boscastle happened because the excessive amount of rainfall made the rivers above the village burst their banks. The water cascaded down the steep valley, where it met the third stream. That overflowed as a consequence. Boscastle has always been a flooding black spot, and the floods are due to the nature of the place, not to tidal waves, global warming, etc.