The Earthquake South of Newfoundland and Submarine Canyons

Abstract

THE powerful earthquake south of Newfoundland which, on Nov. 18 and 19, broke eleven submarine cables in at least twenty-three places and devastated the southern coast of Newfoundland, promises important evidence as to the nature of the submarine canyons off the Atlantic coast of Canada and the United States. The earthquake was obviously of the highest order of intensity at its centre, for it overthrew chimneys, and was therefore of the order of over No. 7 on the Rossi-Forel scale in the towns of Nova Scotia, more than 400 miles from its origin, and it occasioned a tsunami or earthquake wave, which drowned 26 people on the Burin Peninsula in Newfoundland, did extensive damage to property, and in places swept inland to the height of 100 feet.