TWO QUAKES CAUSE NEAR BEACHING IN CAPE VERDE ISLANDS
August 2012: The Cape Verde mass stranding of 17 pilot whales took place on Santa Maria Beach (Sal Island 16.590N; 22.900W) during early morning hours on August 24, 2012. The rescuers were able to push the whales back into deep water and they swam off with the surface flow. These whales were easily rescued because the depth of water at this beach drops off rather quickly due to beach erosion by currents that run parallel to the shoreline at Santa Maria Beach. In other words, this beach is not your stranding-typical, gradually-slopping beach. You can see the water quickly gets deeper near the whales in the pictures. You can also see that the whales are swimming from left to right indicating that the current was flowing west (to the right) and along the shoreline. The two quakes that injured this pod occurred along the Central Mid Atlantic Ridge, just north of the equator at: 4:49N; 32:73W. The first event was a shallow, thrusting, mag