Aerial view of La Palma Island and Cumbre Vieja
A large number of studies carried out by different organizations have determined the existence of a real threat of production of a tsunami in the Canary archipelago that would reach to affect considerably the United States, devastate the African coast and seriously affect a large part of Atlantic Europe.
Although there are other studies that have ruled out this possibility, geological evidence suggests that during a future eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma, a catastrophic tragedy could occur with the fall of a rock mass of between 150 and 500 km³ of rock to the sea. This in itself would be an event of considerable magnitude, but beyond that, what makes us speak of catastrophic magnitudes is tsunami that would produce the fall of that volume of rocks to the sea.
Consequences and evidence
Using models to estimate landslide displacement, the magnitude of the tsunami waves that would produce the landslide of this type (150-500 km³) at a speed of 100 m / s could cross the entire Atlantic and reach the North American coasts. with waves from among 10-25 meters in the worst case.
If a wave of this size were to occur, regions such as the Caribbean or Florida would be seriously affected, as would coastal cities such as New York or Boston. The south of the British archipelago and the Iberian peninsula would have a lower degree of affectation, due to the morphology of the wave. The case of the African coast is much more terrifying, since it would be completely devastated. The personal and material damage would be unimaginable.
Throughout history, similar situations have been observed in the Canary archipelago. El Golfo, a volcano located on the northern flank of the island of Iron, it's an example. Through found sediments it has been possible to demonstrate that a tsunami produced by the fall of part of the volcano's caldera the gulf reached the coasts of Madeira (600 km west of the Canaries) around 15000 years ago. The block that caused this tsunami was much smaller in size, so the tsunami produced by the landslide on La Palma could reach the United States.
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Source - The Geological Society of America, Angle13