Tsunami
Overview
is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake
Tsunamis in lakes
A tsunami is defined as a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, such as an ocean. This is misleading as destructive water waves are not restricted to the ocean, in the case of this article the body of water being investigated will be a lake rather...
. Earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosion
Underwater explosion
An underwater explosion, also known as an UNDEX, is an explosion beneath the surface of water. The type of explosion may be chemical or nuclear...
s (including detonations of underwater nuclear devices), landslides, glacier calvings
Ice calving
Ice calving, also known as glacier calving or iceberg calving, is a form of ice ablation or ice disruption. It is the sudden release and breaking away of a mass of ice from a glacier, iceberg, ice front, ice shelf, or crevasse...
, meteorite impacts
Impact event
An impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Throughout recorded history, hundreds of minor impact events have been reported, with some occurrences causing deaths, injuries, property damage or other significant...
and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami.
Tsunami waves do not resemble normal sea waves, because their wavelength is far longer.
Unanswered Questions
Discussions
Timeline
365 A tsunami devastates the city of Alexandria, Egypt. The tsunami is caused by an earthquake estimated to be 8.0 on the Richter Scale. 5,000 people perished in Alexandria, and 45,000 more died outside the city.
1343 A tsunami, caused by the earthquake in the Tyrrhenian Sea, devastates Naples (Italy) and the Maritime Republic of Amalfi, among other places.
1755 Lisbon earthquake: In Portugal, Lisbon is destroyed by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing between sixty thousand and ninety thousand people.
1833 A massive undersea earthquake, estimated magnitude between 8.7-9.2 rocks Sumatra, producing a massive tsunami all along the Indonesian coast.
1906 A typhoon with tsunami kills an estimated 10,000 people in Hong Kong.
1929 1929 Grand Banks earthquake: Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake, centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula.
1946 Aleutian Island earthquake: A 7.8 magnitude earthquake near the Aleutian Islands creates a tsunami that strikes the Hawaiian Islands killing 159, mostly in Hilo.
1957 A magnitude 8.3 earthquake in the Andreanof Islands, Alaska triggers a Pacific-wide tsunami causing extensive damage to Hawaii and Oahu.
1983 A strong 7.7 magnitude earthquake strikes Japan, triggering a tsunami that kills at least 104 people and injures thousands. Many people go missing and thousands of buildings are destroyed.
1997 The Soufriere Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat explodes, creating a small tsunami offshore.
Encyclopedia
A tsunami
is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake
. Earthquake
s, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosion
s (including detonations of underwater nuclear devices), landslides, glacier calvings
, meteorite impacts
and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami.
Tsunami waves do not resemble normal sea waves, because their wavelength is far longer. Rather than appearing as a breaking wave, a tsunami may instead initially resemble a rapidly rising tide
, and for this reason they are often referred to as tidal waves. Tsunamis generally consist of a series of waves with period
s ranging from minutes to hours, arriving in a so-called "wave train". Wave heights of tens of metres can be generated by large events. Although the impact of tsunamis is limited to coastal areas, their destructive power can be enormous and they can affect entire ocean basins; the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was among the deadliest natural disasters in human history with over 230,000 people killed in 14 countries bordering the Indian Ocean
.
The Greek
historian Thucydides
suggested in 426 B.C. that tsunamis were related to submarine earthquake
s, but the understanding of a tsunami's nature remained slim until the 20th century and much remains unknown. Major areas of current research include trying to determine why some large earthquakes do not generate tsunamis while other smaller ones do; trying to accurately forecast the passage of tsunamis across the oceans; and also to forecast how tsunami waves would interact with specific shorelines.
The term tsunami comes from the Japanese 津波, composed of the two kanji
津 (tsu) meaning "harbor
" and 波 (nami), meaning "wave
". (For the plural, one can either follow ordinary English practice and add an s, or use an invariable plural as in the Japanese.)
Tsunami are sometimes referred to as tidal waves. In recent years, this term has fallen out of favor, especially in the scientific community, because tsunami actually have nothing to do with tide
s. The once-popular term derives from their most common appearance, which is that of an extraordinarily high tidal bore
. Tsunami and tides both produce waves of water that move inland, but in the case of tsunami the inland movement of water is much greater and lasts for a longer period, giving the impression of an incredibly high tide. Although the meanings of "tidal" include "resembling" or "having the form or character of" the tides, and the term tsunami is no more accurate because tsunami are not limited to harbours, use of the term tidal wave is discouraged by geologist
s and oceanographers.
There are only a few other languages that have an equivalent native word. In the Tamil language
, the word is aazhi peralai. In the Acehnese language
, it is ië beuna or alôn buluëk (Depending on the dialect. Note that in the fellow Austronesian language of Tagalog
, a major language in the Philippines
, alon means "wave".) On Simeulue
island, off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, in the Defayan language
the word is smong, while in the Sigulai language
it is emong.
the Greek
historian Thucydides
inquired in his book History of the Peloponnesian War
about the causes of tsunami, and was the first to argue that ocean earthquakes must be the cause.
The Roman
historian Ammianus Marcellinus
(Res Gestae 26.10.15-19) described the typical sequence of a tsunami, including an incipient earthquake, the sudden retreat of the sea and a following gigantic wave, after the 365 A.D. tsunami
devastated Alexandria
.
While Japan may have the longest recorded history of tsunamis, the sheer destruction caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami event mark it as the most devastating of its kind in modern times, killing around 230,000 people. The Sumatran region is not unused to tsunamis either, with earthquakes of varying magnitudes regularly occurring off the coast of the island.
s do not play any part in the generation of tsunamis.
s associated with convergent
or destructive plate boundaries move abruptly, resulting in water displacement, owing to the vertical component of movement involved. Movement on normal faults will also cause displacement of the seabed, but the size of the largest of such events is normally too small to give rise to a significant tsunami.
Tsunamis have a small amplitude
(wave height) offshore, and a very long wavelength
(often hundreds of kilometers long, whereas normal ocean waves have a wavelength of only 30 or 40 metres), which is why they generally pass unnoticed at sea, forming only a slight swell usually about 300 millimetres (11.8 in) above the normal sea surface. They grow in height when they reach shallower water, in a wave shoaling
process described below. A tsunami can occur in any tidal state and even at low tide can still inundate coastal areas.
On April 1, 1946, a magnitude-7.8 (Richter Scale) earthquake
occurred near the Aleutian Islands, Alaska
. It generated a tsunami which inundated Hilo on the island of Hawai'i with a 14 metres (45.9 ft) high surge. The area where the earthquake
occurred is where the Pacific Ocean
floor is subducting (or being pushed downwards) under Alaska
.
Examples of tsunami originating at locations away from convergent boundaries
include Storegga about 8,000 years ago, Grand Banks
1929, Papua New Guinea
1998 (Tappin, 2001). The Grand Banks and Papua New Guinea tsunamis came from earthquakes which destabilized sediments, causing them to flow into the ocean and generate a tsunami. They dissipated before traveling transoceanic distances.
The cause of the Storegga sediment failure is unknown. Possibilities include an overloading of the sediments, an earthquake or a release of gas hydrates (methane etc.)
The 1960 Valdivia earthquake (Mw
9.5) (19:11 hrs UTC), 1964 Alaska earthquake (Mw 9.2), 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
(Mw 9.2) (00:58:53 UTC) and 2011 Tōhoku earthquake
(Mw9.0) are recent examples of powerful megathrust earthquake
s that generated tsunamis (known as teletsunamis) that can cross entire oceans. Smaller (Mw 4.2) earthquakes in Japan can trigger tsunamis (called local and regional tsunamis) that can only devastate nearby coasts, but can do so in only a few minutes.
, Alaska
, caused the highest wave ever recorded, which had a height of 524 metres (over 1700 feet). The wave didn't travel far, as it struck land almost immediately. Two people fishing in the bay were killed, but another boat amazingly managed to ride the wave. Scientists named these waves megatsunami
.
Scientists discovered that extremely large landslides from volcanic island collapses can generate megatsunamis that can cross oceans.
, called a meteotsunami
, which can raise tide
s several metres above normal levels. The displacement comes from low atmospheric pressure
within the centre of the depression. As these storm surges reach shore, they may resemble (though are not) tsunamis, inundating vast areas of land.
Tsunamis cause damage by two mechanisms: the smashing force of a wall of water travelling at high speed, and the destructive power of a large volume of water draining off the land and carrying all with it, even if the wave did not look large.
While everyday wind waves have a wavelength
(from crest to crest) of about 100 metres (328.1 ft) and a height of roughly 2 metres (6.6 ft), a tsunami in the deep ocean has a wavelength of about 200 kilometres (124.3 mi). Such a wave travels at well over 800 kilometres per hour (497.1 mph), but owing to the enormous wavelength the wave oscillation at any given point takes 20 or 30 minutes to complete a cycle and has an amplitude of only about 1 metres (3.3 ft). This makes tsunamis difficult to detect over deep water. Ships rarely notice their passage.
This is the reason for the Japanese name "harbor wave": sometimes a village's fishermen would sail out, and encounter no unusual waves while out at sea fishing, and come back to land to find their village devastated by a huge wave.
As the tsunami approaches the coast and the waters become shallow, wave shoaling
compresses the wave and its velocity slows below 80 kilometres per hour (49.7 mph). Its wavelength diminishes to less than 20 kilometres (12.4 mi) and its amplitude grows enormously. Since the wave still has the same very long period
, the tsunami may take minutes to reach full height. Except for the very largest tsunamis, the approaching wave does not break
, but rather appears like a fast-moving tidal bore
. Open bays and coastlines adjacent to very deep water may shape the tsunami further into a step-like wave with a steep-breaking front.
When the tsunami's wave peak reaches the shore, the resulting temporary rise in sea level is termed run up. Run up is measured in metres above a reference sea level. A large tsunami may feature multiple waves arriving over a period of hours, with significant time between the wave crests. The first wave to reach the shore may not have the highest run up.
About 80% of tsunamis occur in the Pacific Ocean, but they are possible wherever there are large bodies of water, including lakes. They are caused by earthquakes, landslides, volcanic explosions glacier calvings, and bolides.
A drawback occurs because the water propagates outwards with the trough of the wave at its front. Drawback begins before the wave arrives at an interval equal to half of the wave's period. Drawback can exceed hundreds of metres, and people unaware of the danger sometimes remain near the shore to satisfy their curiosity or to collect fish from the exposed seabed.
and the Imamura-Iida intensity scale, used in the Pacific Ocean
. The latter scale was modified by Soloviev, who calculated the Tsunami intensity I according to the formula
where
is the average wave height along the nearest coast. This scale, known as the Soloviev-Imamura tsunami intensity scale, is used in the global tsunami catalogues compiled by the NGDC/NOAA and the Novosibirsk Tsunami Laboratory as the main parameter for the size of the tsunami.
, calculated from,
where h is the maximum tsunami-wave amplitude (in m) measured by a tide gauge at a distance R from the epicenter, a, b & D are constants used to make the Mt scale match as closely as possible with the moment magnitude scale.
of Surrey
, England
, was on Maikhao beach in Phuket
, Thailand
with her parents and sister, and having learned about tsunamis recently in school, told her family that a tsunami might be imminent. Her parents warned others minutes before the wave arrived, saving dozens of lives. She credited her geography teacher, Andrew Kearney.
In the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
drawback was not reported on the African coast or any other eastern coasts it reached. This was because the wave moved downwards on the eastern side of the fault line and upwards on the western side. The western pulse hit coastal Africa and other western areas.
A tsunami cannot be precisely predicted, even if the magnitude and location of an earthquake is known. Geologist
s, oceanographers, and seismologists analyse each earthquake and based on many factors may or may not issue a tsunami warning. However, there are some warning signs of an impending tsunami, and automated systems can provide warnings immediately after an earthquake in time to save lives. One of the most successful systems uses bottom pressure sensors, attached to buoys, which constantly monitor the pressure of the overlying water column.
Regions with a high tsunami risk typically use tsunami warning system
s to warn the population before the wave reaches land. On the west coast of the United States, which is prone to Pacific Ocean tsunami, warning signs indicate evacuation routes. In Japan, the community is well-educated about earthquakes and tsunamis, and along the Japanese shorelines the tsunami warning signs are reminders of the natural hazards together with a network of warning sirens, typically at the top of the cliff of surroundings hills.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning System
is based in Honolulu, Hawaii
. It monitors Pacific Ocean seismic activity. A sufficiently large earthquake magnitude and other information triggers a tsunami warning. While the subduction zones around the Pacific are seismically active, not all earthquakes generate tsunami. Computers assist in analysing the tsunami risk of every earthquake that occurs in the Pacific Ocean and the adjoining land masses.
As a direct result of the Indian Ocean tsunami, a re-appraisal of the tsunami threat for all coastal areas is being undertaken by national governments and the United Nations Disaster Mitigation Committee. A tsunami warning system is being installed in the Indian Ocean.
Computer models can predict tsunami arrival, usually within minutes of the arrival time. Bottom pressure sensors relay information in real time
. Based on these pressure readings and other seismic information and the seafloor's shape (bathymetry
) and coastal topography
, the models estimate the amplitude and surge height of the approaching tsunami. All Pacific Rim
countries collaborate in the Tsunami Warning System and most regularly practice evacuation and other procedures. In Japan, such preparation is mandatory for government, local authorities, emergency services and the population.
Some zoologists hypothesise that some animal species have an ability to sense subsonic Rayleigh waves from an earthquake or a tsunami. If correct, monitoring their behavior could provide advance warning of earthquakes, tsunami etc. However, the evidence is controversial and is not widely accepted. There are unsubstantiated claims about the Lisbon quake that some animals escaped to higher ground, while many other animals in the same areas drowned. The phenomenon was also noted by media sources in Sri Lanka
in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
. It is possible that certain animals (e.g., elephant
s) may have heard the sounds of the tsunami as it approached the coast. The elephants' reaction was to move away from the approaching noise. By contrast, some humans went to the shore to investigate and many drowned as a result.
Along the United States west coast, in addition to sirens, warnings are sent on television & radio via the National Weather Service
, using the Emergency Alert System
.
), a member of Earthquake Research committee of The Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion of Japanese government, mentioned the plan to public announcement of tsunami attack probability forecast at Japan National Press Club
on 12 May 2011. The forecast includes tsunami height, attack area and occurrence probability within 100 years ahead. The forecast would integrate the scientific knowledge of recent interdisciplinarity
and aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
. As the plan, announcement will be available from 2014.
measures have been taken to reduce the damage caused onshore. Japan
, where tsunami science and response measures first began following a disaster in 1896
, has produced ever-more elaborate countermeasures and response plans. That country has built many tsunami walls of up to 4.5 metres (14.8 ft) to protect populated coastal areas. Other localities have built floodgate
s and channels to redirect the water from incoming tsunami. However, their effectiveness has been questioned, as tsunami often overtop the barriers. For instance, the Okushiri, Hokkaidō tsunami which struck Okushiri Island
of Hokkaidō
within two to five minutes of the earthquake on July 12, 1993
created waves as much as 30 metres (98.4 ft) tall—as high as a 10-story building. The port town of Aonae was completely surrounded by a tsunami wall, but the waves washed right over the wall and destroyed all the wood-framed structures in the area. The wall may have succeeded in slowing down and moderating the height of the tsunami, but it did not prevent major destruction and loss of life.
. In World War II, the New Zealand Military Forces
initiated Project Seal
, which attempted to create small tsunamis with explosives in the area of today's Shakespear Regional Park
; the attempt failed.
is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake
Tsunamis in lakes
A tsunami is defined as a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, such as an ocean. This is misleading as destructive water waves are not restricted to the ocean, in the case of this article the body of water being investigated will be a lake rather...
. Earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosion
Underwater explosion
An underwater explosion, also known as an UNDEX, is an explosion beneath the surface of water. The type of explosion may be chemical or nuclear...
s (including detonations of underwater nuclear devices), landslides, glacier calvings
Ice calving
Ice calving, also known as glacier calving or iceberg calving, is a form of ice ablation or ice disruption. It is the sudden release and breaking away of a mass of ice from a glacier, iceberg, ice front, ice shelf, or crevasse...
, meteorite impacts
Impact event
An impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Throughout recorded history, hundreds of minor impact events have been reported, with some occurrences causing deaths, injuries, property damage or other significant...
and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami.
Tsunami waves do not resemble normal sea waves, because their wavelength is far longer. Rather than appearing as a breaking wave, a tsunami may instead initially resemble a rapidly rising tide
Tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....
, and for this reason they are often referred to as tidal waves. Tsunamis generally consist of a series of waves with period
Period
Period may mean a full stop: a punctuation in American-English.Period or periodic may also refer to:-Science:* Orbital period, a concept in astronomy...
s ranging from minutes to hours, arriving in a so-called "wave train". Wave heights of tens of metres can be generated by large events. Although the impact of tsunamis is limited to coastal areas, their destructive power can be enormous and they can affect entire ocean basins; the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was among the deadliest natural disasters in human history with over 230,000 people killed in 14 countries bordering the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
.
The Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
historian Thucydides
Thucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
suggested in 426 B.C. that tsunamis were related to submarine earthquake
Submarine earthquake
A submarine, undersea, or underwater earthquake is an earthquake that occurs underwater at the bottom of a body of water, especially an ocean. They are the leading cause of tsunamis...
s, but the understanding of a tsunami's nature remained slim until the 20th century and much remains unknown. Major areas of current research include trying to determine why some large earthquakes do not generate tsunamis while other smaller ones do; trying to accurately forecast the passage of tsunamis across the oceans; and also to forecast how tsunami waves would interact with specific shorelines.
Etymology
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
津 (tsu) meaning "harbor
Harbor
A harbor or harbour , or haven, is a place where ships, boats, and barges can seek shelter from stormy weather, or else are stored for future use. Harbors can be natural or artificial...
" and 波 (nami), meaning "wave
Ocean surface wave
In fluid dynamics, wind waves or, more precisely, wind-generated waves are surface waves that occur on the free surface of oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, and canals or even on small puddles and ponds. They usually result from the wind blowing over a vast enough stretch of fluid surface. Waves in the...
". (For the plural, one can either follow ordinary English practice and add an s, or use an invariable plural as in the Japanese.)
Tsunami are sometimes referred to as tidal waves. In recent years, this term has fallen out of favor, especially in the scientific community, because tsunami actually have nothing to do with tide
Tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....
s. The once-popular term derives from their most common appearance, which is that of an extraordinarily high tidal bore
Tidal bore
A tidal bore is a tidal phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave of water that travel up a river or narrow bay against the direction of the river or bay's current...
. Tsunami and tides both produce waves of water that move inland, but in the case of tsunami the inland movement of water is much greater and lasts for a longer period, giving the impression of an incredibly high tide. Although the meanings of "tidal" include "resembling" or "having the form or character of" the tides, and the term tsunami is no more accurate because tsunami are not limited to harbours, use of the term tidal wave is discouraged by geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
s and oceanographers.
There are only a few other languages that have an equivalent native word. In the Tamil language
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, the word is aazhi peralai. In the Acehnese language
Acehnese language
Acehnese or Aceh is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by Acehnese people natively in Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia...
, it is ië beuna or alôn buluëk (Depending on the dialect. Note that in the fellow Austronesian language of Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
, a major language in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, alon means "wave".) On Simeulue
Simeulue
Simeulue Regency is a regency in the Aceh province of Indonesia. It occupies the whole island of Simeulue , 150 km off the west coast of Sumatra, with a population of 80,279 ....
island, off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, in the Defayan language
Defayan language
The Simeulue language is spoken on Simeulue island, off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia....
the word is smong, while in the Sigulai language
Sigulai language
The Sikule language is spoken on Simeulue island off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia....
it is emong.
History
As early as 426 B.C.426 BC Maliakos Gulf tsunami
The 426 BC Malian Gulf tsunami was a tsunami devastating the coasts of the Malian and Euboean Gulfs, Greece, in the summer of 426 BC. Thucydides inquired into its causes, and concluded that the tsunami must have been caused by an earthquake, He was thus the first to describe the cause of tsunamis...
the Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
historian Thucydides
Thucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
inquired in his book History of the Peloponnesian War
History of the Peloponnesian War
The History of the Peloponnesian War is an account of the Peloponnesian War in Ancient Greece, fought between the Peloponnesian League and the Delian League . It was written by Thucydides, an Athenian general who served in the war. It is widely considered a classic and regarded as one of the...
about the causes of tsunami, and was the first to argue that ocean earthquakes must be the cause.
The cause, in my opinion, of this phenomenon must be sought in the earthquake. At the point where its shock has been the most violent the sea is driven back, and suddenly recoiling with redoubled force, causes the inundation. Without an earthquake I do not see how such an accident could happen.
The Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
historian Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth-century Roman historian. He wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Antiquity...
(Res Gestae 26.10.15-19) described the typical sequence of a tsunami, including an incipient earthquake, the sudden retreat of the sea and a following gigantic wave, after the 365 A.D. tsunami
365 Crete earthquake
The AD 365 Crete earthquake was an undersea earthquake that occurred at about sunrise on 21 July 365 in the Eastern Mediterranean, with an assumed epicentre near Crete. Geologists today estimate the quake to have been 8 on the Richter Scale or higher, causing widespread destruction in central and...
devastated Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
.
While Japan may have the longest recorded history of tsunamis, the sheer destruction caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami event mark it as the most devastating of its kind in modern times, killing around 230,000 people. The Sumatran region is not unused to tsunamis either, with earthquakes of varying magnitudes regularly occurring off the coast of the island.
Generation mechanisms
The principal generation mechanism (or cause) of a tsunami is the displacement of a substantial volume of water or perturbation of the sea. This displacement of water is usually attributed to either earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions,glacier calvings or more rarely by meteorites and nuclear tests. The waves formed in this way are then sustained by gravity. TideTide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....
s do not play any part in the generation of tsunamis.
Tsunami generated by seismicity
Tsunami can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water. Tectonic earthquakes are a particular kind of earthquake that are associated with the Earth's crustal deformation; when these earthquakes occur beneath the sea, the water above the deformed area is displaced from its equilibrium position. More specifically, a tsunami can be generated when thrust faultThrust fault
A thrust fault is a type of fault, or break in the Earth's crust across which there has been relative movement, in which rocks of lower stratigraphic position are pushed up and over higher strata. They are often recognized because they place older rocks above younger...
s associated with convergent
Convergent boundary
In plate tectonics, a convergent boundary, also known as a destructive plate boundary , is an actively deforming region where two tectonic plates or fragments of lithosphere move toward one another and collide...
or destructive plate boundaries move abruptly, resulting in water displacement, owing to the vertical component of movement involved. Movement on normal faults will also cause displacement of the seabed, but the size of the largest of such events is normally too small to give rise to a significant tsunami.
Tsunamis have a small amplitude
Amplitude
Amplitude is the magnitude of change in the oscillating variable with each oscillation within an oscillating system. For example, sound waves in air are oscillations in atmospheric pressure and their amplitudes are proportional to the change in pressure during one oscillation...
(wave height) offshore, and a very long wavelength
Wavelength
In physics, the wavelength of a sinusoidal wave is the spatial period of the wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats.It is usually determined by considering the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase, such as crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a...
(often hundreds of kilometers long, whereas normal ocean waves have a wavelength of only 30 or 40 metres), which is why they generally pass unnoticed at sea, forming only a slight swell usually about 300 millimetres (11.8 in) above the normal sea surface. They grow in height when they reach shallower water, in a wave shoaling
Wave shoaling
In fluid dynamics, wave shoaling is the effect by which surface waves entering shallower water increase in wave height . It is caused by the fact that the group velocity, which is also the wave-energy transport velocity, decreases with the reduction of water depth...
process described below. A tsunami can occur in any tidal state and even at low tide can still inundate coastal areas.
On April 1, 1946, a magnitude-7.8 (Richter Scale) earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
occurred near the Aleutian Islands, Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. It generated a tsunami which inundated Hilo on the island of Hawai'i with a 14 metres (45.9 ft) high surge. The area where the earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
occurred is where the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
floor is subducting (or being pushed downwards) under Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
.
Examples of tsunami originating at locations away from convergent boundaries
Convergent boundary
In plate tectonics, a convergent boundary, also known as a destructive plate boundary , is an actively deforming region where two tectonic plates or fragments of lithosphere move toward one another and collide...
include Storegga about 8,000 years ago, Grand Banks
Grand Banks
The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a group of underwater plateaus southeast of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. These areas are relatively shallow, ranging from in depth. The cold Labrador Current mixes with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream here.The mixing of these waters...
1929, Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
1998 (Tappin, 2001). The Grand Banks and Papua New Guinea tsunamis came from earthquakes which destabilized sediments, causing them to flow into the ocean and generate a tsunami. They dissipated before traveling transoceanic distances.
The cause of the Storegga sediment failure is unknown. Possibilities include an overloading of the sediments, an earthquake or a release of gas hydrates (methane etc.)
The 1960 Valdivia earthquake (Mw
Moment magnitude scale
The moment magnitude scale is used by seismologists to measure the size of earthquakes in terms of the energy released. The magnitude is based on the seismic moment of the earthquake, which is equal to the rigidity of the Earth multiplied by the average amount of slip on the fault and the size of...
9.5) (19:11 hrs UTC), 1964 Alaska earthquake (Mw 9.2), 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
(Mw 9.2) (00:58:53 UTC) and 2011 Tōhoku earthquake
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...
(Mw9.0) are recent examples of powerful megathrust earthquake
Megathrust earthquake
Megathrust earthquakes occur at subduction zones at destructive plate boundaries , where one tectonic plate is forced under another. Due to the shallow dip of the plate boundary, which causes large sections to get stuck, these earthquakes are among the world's largest, with moment magnitudes ...
s that generated tsunamis (known as teletsunamis) that can cross entire oceans. Smaller (Mw 4.2) earthquakes in Japan can trigger tsunamis (called local and regional tsunamis) that can only devastate nearby coasts, but can do so in only a few minutes.
Tsunami generated by landslides
In the 1950s, it was discovered that larger tsunamis than had previously been believed possible could be caused by giant landslides. Underwater landslides that generate tsunamis are called sciorrucks. These phenomena rapidly displace large water volumes, as energy from falling debris or expansion transfers to the water at a rate faster than the water can absorb. Their existence was confirmed in 1958, when a giant landslide in Lituya Bay1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami
The 1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami occurred on July 9, 1958, when an earthquake triggered a landslide that caused 30 million cubic meters of rock and ice to fall into the narrow inlet of Lituya Bay, Alaska...
, Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, caused the highest wave ever recorded, which had a height of 524 metres (over 1700 feet). The wave didn't travel far, as it struck land almost immediately. Two people fishing in the bay were killed, but another boat amazingly managed to ride the wave. Scientists named these waves megatsunami
Megatsunami
Megatsunami is an informal term to describe a tsunami that has initial wave heights that are much larger than normal tsunamis...
.
Scientists discovered that extremely large landslides from volcanic island collapses can generate megatsunamis that can cross oceans.
Meteotsunamis
Some meteorological conditions, such as deep depressions that cause tropical cyclones, can generate a storm surgeStorm surge
A storm surge is an offshore rise of water associated with a low pressure weather system, typically tropical cyclones and strong extratropical cyclones. Storm surges are caused primarily by high winds pushing on the ocean's surface. The wind causes the water to pile up higher than the ordinary sea...
, called a meteotsunami
Meteotsunami
A meteotsunami or meteorological tsunami is a tsunami-like wave phenomenon of meteorological origin. Tsunamis and meteotsunamis propagate in the water in the same way and have the same coastal dynamics. In other words, for an observer on the coast where it strikes the two types would look the same....
, which can raise tide
Tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....
s several metres above normal levels. The displacement comes from low atmospheric pressure
Atmospheric pressure
Atmospheric pressure is the force per unit area exerted into a surface by the weight of air above that surface in the atmosphere of Earth . In most circumstances atmospheric pressure is closely approximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the weight of air above the measurement point...
within the centre of the depression. As these storm surges reach shore, they may resemble (though are not) tsunamis, inundating vast areas of land.
Characteristics
While everyday wind waves have a wavelength
Wavelength
In physics, the wavelength of a sinusoidal wave is the spatial period of the wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats.It is usually determined by considering the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase, such as crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a...
(from crest to crest) of about 100 metres (328.1 ft) and a height of roughly 2 metres (6.6 ft), a tsunami in the deep ocean has a wavelength of about 200 kilometres (124.3 mi). Such a wave travels at well over 800 kilometres per hour (497.1 mph), but owing to the enormous wavelength the wave oscillation at any given point takes 20 or 30 minutes to complete a cycle and has an amplitude of only about 1 metres (3.3 ft). This makes tsunamis difficult to detect over deep water. Ships rarely notice their passage.
This is the reason for the Japanese name "harbor wave": sometimes a village's fishermen would sail out, and encounter no unusual waves while out at sea fishing, and come back to land to find their village devastated by a huge wave.
As the tsunami approaches the coast and the waters become shallow, wave shoaling
Wave shoaling
In fluid dynamics, wave shoaling is the effect by which surface waves entering shallower water increase in wave height . It is caused by the fact that the group velocity, which is also the wave-energy transport velocity, decreases with the reduction of water depth...
compresses the wave and its velocity slows below 80 kilometres per hour (49.7 mph). Its wavelength diminishes to less than 20 kilometres (12.4 mi) and its amplitude grows enormously. Since the wave still has the same very long period
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
, the tsunami may take minutes to reach full height. Except for the very largest tsunamis, the approaching wave does not break
Breaking wave
In fluid dynamics, a breaking wave is a wave whose amplitude reaches a critical level at which some process can suddenly start to occur that causes large amounts of wave energy to be transformed into turbulent kinetic energy...
, but rather appears like a fast-moving tidal bore
Tidal bore
A tidal bore is a tidal phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave of water that travel up a river or narrow bay against the direction of the river or bay's current...
. Open bays and coastlines adjacent to very deep water may shape the tsunami further into a step-like wave with a steep-breaking front.
When the tsunami's wave peak reaches the shore, the resulting temporary rise in sea level is termed run up. Run up is measured in metres above a reference sea level. A large tsunami may feature multiple waves arriving over a period of hours, with significant time between the wave crests. The first wave to reach the shore may not have the highest run up.
About 80% of tsunamis occur in the Pacific Ocean, but they are possible wherever there are large bodies of water, including lakes. They are caused by earthquakes, landslides, volcanic explosions glacier calvings, and bolides.
Drawback
If the first part of a tsunami to reach land is a trough—called a drawback—rather than a wave crest, the water along the shoreline recedes dramatically, exposing normally submerged areas.A drawback occurs because the water propagates outwards with the trough of the wave at its front. Drawback begins before the wave arrives at an interval equal to half of the wave's period. Drawback can exceed hundreds of metres, and people unaware of the danger sometimes remain near the shore to satisfy their curiosity or to collect fish from the exposed seabed.
Scales of intensity and magnitude
As with earthquakes, several attempts have been made to set up scales of tsunami intensity or magnitude to allow comparison between different events.Intensity scales
The first scales used routinely to measure the intensity of tsunami were the Sieberg-Ambraseys scale, used in the Mediterranean SeaMediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
and the Imamura-Iida intensity scale, used in the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
. The latter scale was modified by Soloviev, who calculated the Tsunami intensity I according to the formula
where
is the average wave height along the nearest coast. This scale, known as the Soloviev-Imamura tsunami intensity scale, is used in the global tsunami catalogues compiled by the NGDC/NOAA and the Novosibirsk Tsunami Laboratory as the main parameter for the size of the tsunami.Magnitude scales
The first scale that genuinely calculated a magnitude for a tsunami, rather than an intensity at a particular location was the ML scale proposed by Murty & Loomis based on the potential energy. Difficulties in calculating the potential energy of the tsunami mean that this scale is rarely used. Abe introduced the tsunami magnitude scale, calculated from,where h is the maximum tsunami-wave amplitude (in m) measured by a tide gauge at a distance R from the epicenter, a, b & D are constants used to make the Mt scale match as closely as possible with the moment magnitude scale.
Warnings and predictions
Drawbacks can serve as a brief warning. People who observe drawback (many survivors report an accompanying sucking sound), can survive only if they immediately run for high ground or seek the upper floors of nearby buildings. In 2004, ten-year old Tilly SmithTilly Smith
Tilly Smith is a British girl who, at the age of 10, was credited with saving nearly a hundred foreign tourists at Maikhao Beach in Thailand by warning beachgoers minutes before the arrival of the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake....
of Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, was on Maikhao beach in Phuket
Phuket Province
Phuket , formerly known as Thalang and, in Western sources, Junk Ceylon , is one of the southern provinces of Thailand...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
with her parents and sister, and having learned about tsunamis recently in school, told her family that a tsunami might be imminent. Her parents warned others minutes before the wave arrived, saving dozens of lives. She credited her geography teacher, Andrew Kearney.
In the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
drawback was not reported on the African coast or any other eastern coasts it reached. This was because the wave moved downwards on the eastern side of the fault line and upwards on the western side. The western pulse hit coastal Africa and other western areas.
A tsunami cannot be precisely predicted, even if the magnitude and location of an earthquake is known. Geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
s, oceanographers, and seismologists analyse each earthquake and based on many factors may or may not issue a tsunami warning. However, there are some warning signs of an impending tsunami, and automated systems can provide warnings immediately after an earthquake in time to save lives. One of the most successful systems uses bottom pressure sensors, attached to buoys, which constantly monitor the pressure of the overlying water column.
Regions with a high tsunami risk typically use tsunami warning system
Tsunami warning system
A Tsunami warning system is used to detect tsunamis in advance and issue warnings to prevent loss of life and damage. It consists of two equally important components: a network of sensors to detect tsunamis and a communications infrastructure to issue timely alarms to permit evacuation of coastal...
s to warn the population before the wave reaches land. On the west coast of the United States, which is prone to Pacific Ocean tsunami, warning signs indicate evacuation routes. In Japan, the community is well-educated about earthquakes and tsunamis, and along the Japanese shorelines the tsunami warning signs are reminders of the natural hazards together with a network of warning sirens, typically at the top of the cliff of surroundings hills.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning System
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center is one of two tsunami warning centers that are operated by NOAA in the United States. Headquartered in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, the PTWC is part of an international tsunami warning system program and serves as the operational center for TWS of the Pacific issuing...
is based in Honolulu, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
. It monitors Pacific Ocean seismic activity. A sufficiently large earthquake magnitude and other information triggers a tsunami warning. While the subduction zones around the Pacific are seismically active, not all earthquakes generate tsunami. Computers assist in analysing the tsunami risk of every earthquake that occurs in the Pacific Ocean and the adjoining land masses.
Computer models can predict tsunami arrival, usually within minutes of the arrival time. Bottom pressure sensors relay information in real time
Present
Present is a time that is neither past nor future.Present may also refer to:- Time and timing :* Present tense, the grammatical tense of a verb* Before Present, radiocarbon dates relative to AD 1950* Presenting, a medical term* Presenteeism...
. Based on these pressure readings and other seismic information and the seafloor's shape (bathymetry
Bathymetry
Bathymetry is the study of underwater depth of lake or ocean floors. In other words, bathymetry is the underwater equivalent to hypsometry. The name comes from Greek βαθύς , "deep", and μέτρον , "measure"...
) and coastal topography
Topography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
, the models estimate the amplitude and surge height of the approaching tsunami. All Pacific Rim
Pacific Rim
The Pacific Rim refers to places around the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The term "Pacific Basin" includes the Pacific Rim and islands in the Pacific Ocean...
countries collaborate in the Tsunami Warning System and most regularly practice evacuation and other procedures. In Japan, such preparation is mandatory for government, local authorities, emergency services and the population.
Some zoologists hypothesise that some animal species have an ability to sense subsonic Rayleigh waves from an earthquake or a tsunami. If correct, monitoring their behavior could provide advance warning of earthquakes, tsunami etc. However, the evidence is controversial and is not widely accepted. There are unsubstantiated claims about the Lisbon quake that some animals escaped to higher ground, while many other animals in the same areas drowned. The phenomenon was also noted by media sources in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
. It is possible that certain animals (e.g., elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
s) may have heard the sounds of the tsunami as it approached the coast. The elephants' reaction was to move away from the approaching noise. By contrast, some humans went to the shore to investigate and many drowned as a result.
Along the United States west coast, in addition to sirens, warnings are sent on television & radio via the National Weather Service
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
, using the Emergency Alert System
Emergency Alert System
The Emergency Alert System is a national warning system in the United States put into place on January 1, 1997, when it superseded the Emergency Broadcast System , which itself had superseded the CONELRAD System...
.
Forecast of tsunami attack probability
Kunihiko Shimazaki (University of TokyoUniversity of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...
), a member of Earthquake Research committee of The Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion of Japanese government, mentioned the plan to public announcement of tsunami attack probability forecast at Japan National Press Club
Japan National Press Club
-History:This was established as national press center in place of Foreign Correspondents' Club Japan at November 1969....
on 12 May 2011. The forecast includes tsunami height, attack area and occurrence probability within 100 years ahead. The forecast would integrate the scientific knowledge of recent interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinarity involves the combining of two or more academic fields into one single discipline. An interdisciplinary field crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions have emerged....
and aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
Aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami included both a humanitarian crisis and massive economic impacts. The tsunami created over 300,000 refugees in the Tōhoku region, and resulted in shortages of food, water, shelter, medicine and fuel for survivors...
. As the plan, announcement will be available from 2014.
Mitigation
In some tsunami-prone countries earthquake engineeringEarthquake engineering
Earthquake engineering is the scientific field concerned with protecting society, the natural and the man-made environment from earthquakes by limiting the seismic risk to socio-economically acceptable levels...
measures have been taken to reduce the damage caused onshore. Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, where tsunami science and response measures first began following a disaster in 1896
1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake
The 1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake was highly destructive, generating one of the most devastating tsunamis in Japanese history, destroying about 9,000 homes and causing at least 22,000 deaths. This magnitude 7.2 event occurred at 19:32 on June 15, 1896...
, has produced ever-more elaborate countermeasures and response plans. That country has built many tsunami walls of up to 4.5 metres (14.8 ft) to protect populated coastal areas. Other localities have built floodgate
Floodgate
Floodgates are adjustable gates used to control water flow in flood barriers, reservoir, river, stream, or levee systems. They may be designed to set spillway crest heights in dams, to adjust flow rates in sluices and canals, or they may be designed to stop water flow entirely as part of a levee or...
s and channels to redirect the water from incoming tsunami. However, their effectiveness has been questioned, as tsunami often overtop the barriers. For instance, the Okushiri, Hokkaidō tsunami which struck Okushiri Island
Okushiri, Hokkaido
is a town encompassing all of Okushiri Island, located in Okushiri District, Hiyama, Hokkaidō, Japan.As of 2008, the town has an estimated population of 3,442 and a density of 24.5 persons per km²...
of Hokkaidō
Hokkaido
, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...
within two to five minutes of the earthquake on July 12, 1993
1993 Hokkaidō earthquake
The occurred at 13:17:12 UTC on in the Sea of Japan near the island of Hokkaido. It had a magnitude of 7.7 on the moment magnitude scale and a maximum felt intensity of VIII on the Mercalli intensity scale. It triggered a major tsunami that caused deaths on Hokkaidō and in southeastern Russia,...
created waves as much as 30 metres (98.4 ft) tall—as high as a 10-story building. The port town of Aonae was completely surrounded by a tsunami wall, but the waves washed right over the wall and destroyed all the wood-framed structures in the area. The wall may have succeeded in slowing down and moderating the height of the tsunami, but it did not prevent major destruction and loss of life.
As a weapon
There have been studies and at least one attempt to create tsunami waves as a weaponTectonic weapon
A tectonic weapon is a hypothetical device or system by which a nation could create earthquakes, volcanoes, or similar events in specified locations by interference with the earth's geological processes...
. In World War II, the New Zealand Military Forces
New Zealand Army
The New Zealand Army , is the land component of the New Zealand Defence Force and comprises around 4,500 Regular Force personnel, 2,000 Territorial Force personnel and 500 civilians. Formerly the New Zealand Military Forces, the current name was adopted around 1946...
initiated Project Seal
Project Seal
Project Seal was a programme by the New Zealand military to develop a weapon that could create destructive tsunamis. This weapon was tested in Whangaparaoa off the coast of Auckland between 1944-1945. The experiments were conducted by Professor Thomas Leech...
, which attempted to create small tsunamis with explosives in the area of today's Shakespear Regional Park
Shakespear Regional Park
Shakespear Regional Park is a nature park in the Auckland Region of New Zealand. It is located at the tip of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, and is named after the Shakespear family which bought the land in the 1880s from local Maori....
; the attempt failed.
See also
External links
- Animation of DART tsunami detection system
- Can HF Radar detect Tsunamis? – University of Hamburg HF-Radar.
- Envirtech Tsunami Warning System – Based on seabed seismics and sea level gauges.
- Geology.com The highest tsunami was caused by rockfall
- IOC Tsunami Glossary by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic CommissionIntergovernmental Oceanographic CommissionThe Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission was established by resolution 2.31 adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO. It first met in Paris at Unesco Headquarters from 19 to 27 October 1961. Initially, 40 States became members of the Commission.The IOC is composed of its Member States ,...
(IOC) at the International Tsunami Information Centre (ITIC) of UNESCOUNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations... - How to survive a tsunami – Guide for children and youth
- International Centre for Geohazards (ICG)
- ITSU – Coordination Group for the Pacific Tsunami Warning System.
- Jakarta Tsunami Information Centre
- National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program Coordinated U.S. Federal/State effort
- NOAA Center for Tsunami Research (NCTR)
- NOAA Tsunami – General description of tsunamis and the United States agency NOAA's role
- NOVA: Wave That Shook The World – Site and special report shot within days of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
- Pacific Tsunami Museum
- Science of Tsunami Hazards journal
- Tsunami scientific publications list
- Scientific American Magazine (January 2006 Issue) Tsunami: Wave of Change What we can learn from the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.
- Social & Economic Costs of Tsunamis in the United States from "NOAA Socioeconomics" website initiative
- Tsunami Centers – United States National Weather Service.
- Tsunami database with detailed statistics
- Interactive map of recent and historical tsunami events with links to graphics, animations and data
- Tsunami Warning – Tsunami warnings via mobile phone.
- Tsunamis and Earthquakes
- USGS: Surviving a tsunami (United States)
- Impact of Tsunami on groundwater resources IGRAC International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre
- Tsunami Surges on Dry Coastal Plains: Application of Dam Break Wave Equations, Coastal Engineering JournalCoastal Engineering JournalCoastal Engineering Journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering achievements and engineering practices in the fields of coastal, harbor and offshore engineering...
, 48 4: 355-370
Images, video, and animations
- Tsunami videos on YouTube from the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research
- Amateur Camcorder Video Streams of the December 26, 2004 tsunami that hit Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia (search on tsunamis)
- Animation of 1960 tsunami originating outside coast of Chile
- Animations of actual and simulated tsunami events from the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research
- CBC Digital Archives – Canada's Earthquakes and Tsunamis
- Computer-generated animation of a tsunami
- Origin of a Tsunami – animation showing how the shifting of continental plates in the Indian Ocean created the catastrophe of December 26, 2004.
- Photos and Videos of Humanitarian Assistance to Tsunami-hit areas by the Singapore Armed ForcesSingapore Armed ForcesThe Singapore Armed Forces is the military arm of the Total Defence of the Republic of Singapore; as well as the military component of the Ministry of Defence. The SAF comprises three branches: the Singapore Army, the Republic of Singapore Air Force and the Republic of Singapore Navy...
- Tsunami Aftermath in Penang and Kuala Muda, Kedah.
- Satellite Images of Tsunami Affected Areas High resolution satellite images showing the effects of the 2004 tsunami on the affected areas in Indonesia, Thailand and Nicobar island of India.
- The Survivors – A moving travelogue full of stunning images along the tsunami ravaged South-Western Coast of India (Unavailable)
- Animations of tsunami propagation model results for actual tsunami events
- 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami at YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
- Raw Video: Tsunami Slams Northeast Japan, a video of the 2011 Tōhoku (Japan) earthquake tsunami2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunamiThe 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...
by Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
at YouTube, showing the wave from a tsunami engulfing a town and farmlands.