From San Francisco, at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union
On the morning of Nov. 1, 1755, the thriving port city of Lisbon, Portugal, was devastated by three earthquakes, the tsunamis they triggered, and an ensuing fire. Tens of thousands of residents lost their lives. Now, tsunami simulations suggest that a newly discovered fault zone beneath the Atlantic Ocean could be the source of most of the seismic energy released that day.