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Big waves, in surfing, are the pinnacle of the sport.
But big waves outside of surfing are something else entirely. There are waves on record – some not even at typical ocean surf spots – that are unfathomably massive.
And the biggest ever on record? An absolute monster.
In a new article from How Stuff Works, they detail this historic mountain of water. It happened back on July 9th, 1958 in Lituya Bay, Alaska – a fjord off the Gulf of Alaska. A fjord, just FYI, is a narrow oceanic inlet with high cliffs surrounding it.
Think Lord of the Rings and that one scene in which the ships sail through the slender waterway with the giant, dilapidated statues on either end of the entrance to Gondor.
(Nerd alert.)
Anyway, per the article:
Related: Potential New Record for Largest Wave Ever Surfed (Video)
“In the serene landscape of Lituya Bay, Alaska, the evening of July 9, 1958, marked a monumental event. Seismic activity along the Fairweather Fault, which runs west of Juneau along the Alaska Panhandle, triggered a massive earthquake and dislodged an enormous amount of earth.
“This landslide, involving approximately 90 million tons of rock, plunged into the narrow Gilbert Inlet at tremendous speed. The displacement caused by the glacier that dropped into the inlet was so immense that it created a tsunami unlike any recorded before or since.”
The size of the wave? 1,720 feet. That’s taller than the Empire State Building.
Related: Was the 100 Foot Wave Surfed? A Semi-Scientific Breakdown (Clip)
For reference, the largest wave ever surfed, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was 86 feet from German big waver, Sebastian Steudtner on October 29th, 2020 in Nazaré, Portugal. More recently, Brazilian Lucas “Chumbo” Chianca may have smashed that – also at Nazaré – with a potential 100-footer. (Confirmation pending.)
That’s minuscule, a ripple in a toilet bowl, compared to the Lituya Bay mega-tsunami. But, of course, that wave wasn’t exactly a real wave. Nor could it be physically surfed by any human. And something of that magnitude probably never will be.
Never ever.
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