There was a false tsunami warning on the US East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico and in the Caribbean yesterday. The causes of tsunamis can vary. One of of the causes can be underwater avalanches and volcanoes.
In 1929, an earthquake off Canada’s east coast triggered an underwater landslide that shifted nearly 50 cubic miles (200 cubic kilometers) of rocks and sediment. That avalanche, in turn, generated powerful waves reaching 10 to 26 feet (3 to 8 meters) high that struck the coast of Newfoundland — killing 28 people
There have been more than 15 landslides surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. They are among the largest known on Earth. Mind your the most recent is thought to have occurred 100,000 years ago. There is evidence today that large blocks of land on the island of Hawaii are beginning to slide. This generates large earthquakes in the process.
Australia's Great Barrier Reef is the location of the largest undersea landslide - 32 cubic kilometres' in volume. This was more than 300,000 years ago. They found this while using 3E multi beam mapping of the deep Great Barrier Reef seafloor. Instead of being relatively flat, there were eight knolls, some over 100 metres high and 3 km long.
Our picture today shows the Niagara Blossom Trail Series. We can look forward to this experience in May.
I was thinking of the difference between the words flowers, blossoms, and blooms.
It seems like we wouldn't say "Look at that rose blossom". Instead, we might say "Look at the rose blooming".
We think of fruit trees - apples, cherries, plums, almonds, peaches, etc as having blossoms, being blossom trees, and blossoming in the spring.
One site says that blossoms don't flower, but flowers do blossom. That seemed poetic indeed.
Blooming seems to occur with flowers/flowering plants. It doesn't seem typical to comment that the orchard is blooming. We would comment that the roses are blooming.
These differences seem subtle and tricky, and refer to the literal meaning of flower, blossom and bloom. To continue with the literal meaning, this comes from Collins English Dictionary for bloom.
1. countable noun A bloom is the flower on a plant. [literary , technical] ...the sweet fragrance of the white blooms. Harry carefully picked the bloom. Synonyms: flower, bud, blossom
2. in bloom
3. verb When a plant or tree blooms, it produces flowers. When a flower blooms, it opens. This plant blooms between May and June. Synonyms: flower, blossom, open, bud
What about these distinctions between the words? The Scrabble score for each of these words:
blossom is 61 points - blossoming is 65 points bloom is 9 points - blooming is 63 points flower is 12 points - flowering is 66 points
