From the Dec. 31, 2012, News.com.au by AFP.
A new book discusses a joint United States-New Zealand project launched in June 1944. A US Naval officers had noticed that blasting operations to clear coral reefs sometimes produced a huge wave.
A test was carried out north of Auckland led scientists to believe that a series of ten massive blasts offshore could produce a ten-metre tsunami capable of inundating a small coastal city.
The project was shelved in early 1945 despite success on some small-scale tests.
Of interest, back in the Civil War, Union General Benjamin Butler proposed a similar plan to destroy the Confederate Fort Fisher guarding an approach to Wilmington, NC. A Union ship was loaded with gunpowder, run into shore near the fort and exploded. Butler thought the concussion would knock the sand fort down. It didn't.
Waves Over You. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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