Cause And Effect Of Tsunamis

The Christmas Day Tsunami was caused by a massive earthquake. There was forces that had been building up for hundreds of years and once they forces were released it caused violent and killer waves to be unleashed. These violent movements of the tectonic plates displaced huge amounts of water which sent powerful shock waves in every direction. The Earthquake that caused the Tsunami was a result of the sliding of the India plates which had been going on for a millennium. The Earth shuddered due to trillions of rocks that were moved. The disturbed seafloor was displaced and created the Tsunami. So many people were caught unprepared because this was something that took time. The forces and sliding of the plates had been happening overtime for years

The most noticeable difference between a tsunami and a hurricane is the cause of each. A tsunami is the aftermath of an underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption. The force of the earthquake or eruption, along with the moving of the tectonic plates, sends large amounts of water in all directions. The waves can be thousands of feet high when they reach the shoreline. These giant waves can arrive at a moment's notice with no warning. The tsunami is a large natural phenomenon originating from the ocean, but it is not the only phenomenon to start in the ocean.

Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes underneath the ocean, which can results in gigantic waves that cause devastation and change the Earth’s surface by causing radiation and causing underwater landslides. In the article “Is Santa Catalina Island Sinking or Rising?” it describes how an effect of tsunamis. It states, “A tsunami could have struck the coast from Catalina when the underwater landslide occured” (Los Angeles Times 2). Therefore, tsunamis can strike coasts and can create landslides underwater, changing the ocean floor by creating caves and canyons. Also, tsunamis can wear away beaches. When giant waves crash into coasts of masses of land, they can wear away the coast. Finally, tsunamis can cause radiation. In the article “Dangerous Tsunami Threat off U.S. West Coast,” it explains, “It [the tsunami] also damaged a nuclear power plant, causing a meltdown and spreading dangerous radiation in the area” (Los Angeles Times). Consequently, tsunamis can destroy and interfere with human made buildings which may contain toxic gases which may be released into the air and cause damage the environment. Incidentally, damaging the environment can lead to killing plant and animal life, and the Earth in that area could potentially become barren and

The Boxing Day Tsunami had occurred on the 26th of December 2004. The tsunami had started under water, in the Indian Ocean. The cause of the tsunami was that the Indo-Australian plate had subducted below the Eurasian plate, this process is called a convergent plate boundary. This resulted with an underwater earthquake, making waves approximately 20-30 metres high and travelling at speeds up to 500km/ph. Theses waves travelled throughout Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand and left each country in terrible conditions. The earthquake that occurred underwater had

Tsunamis occur when an earthquake happens in the ocean and the energy goes to the water creating huge waves. Tsunamis are very dangerous they can be so strong that they wash away the city, harm thousands, and cause hundreds of thousands to billions of dollars in damage. “A giant tsunami along the West Coast would wash away coastal towns, destroy U.S. Highway 101 and cause $70 billion in damage. More than 100 bridges would be lost, power lines toppled and coastal towns isolated. Residents would have as few as 15 minutes’ notice to flee to higher ground, and as many as 10,000 would die” (Dangerous tsunami threat off U.S. West Coast). This shows what kind of damage this geo-process can

The tsunami waves reached heights up to 128 feet at Miyako city and traveled inland as far as six miles. A tsunami is a series of large sea waves caused by a large displacement of water. The tsunami flooded an estimated area of approximately 217 square miles in Japan. The massive waves destroyed large three-story buildings where many people seeked for safety. Within hours of the first tsunami hit Hawaii and set off multiple warning to Canada, Alaska, South America, the United States, the Oregon coast, and the Pacific.

Tsunamis occur when there is sudden movement in an extensive body of water such as earthquakes, landslides on the sea floor, major volcanic eruptions or meteorite impacts. The most common source of a tsunami is earthquakes, which are another type of geomorphic hazard that is caused by the friction and stress that tectonic plates put on each other. Tsunamis primarily occur in coastal or island regions where there is a tectonic border or what is known as the ring of fire. As shown in the diagram below the ring of fire is located along the coastal and island regions of the world.As a result of the Pacific Plate diving beneath the Eurasian plate, on March 11, 2011, there were 2 geomorphic hazards, a magnitude-9 earthquake struck north Japan, which caused a deadly tsunami that reached heights of 39 meters. The destructive dilemma was dubbed ‘The Great Sendai Disaster’. The earthquake was caused by multiple centuries of stress on the tectonic plates surrounding the island. The earthquake caused a tsunami that reached the height of 39 meters (128 feet). Japanese scientists had previously discovered that there was another tsunami just like the one in 2011 that took place in 869 AD. But their warning was unhindered. The tsunami, which occurred in 869 AD, was caused by the same tectonic fault as the 2011 tsunami. The epicenter of the earthquake was off the northeast cost of Japan leading to a devastating tsunami that killed many and left many wishing they were. The massive earthquake caused an upward wave that headed towards the city of Sendai. Researches have recently uncovered a thin layer of clay that lubricated the fault zone causing the deadly tectonic slip, thus creating a tsunami that could wipe out an entire city as it did in 2011.The aftermath of the 2011 tsunami and earthquake was not pretty; it caused many deaths, injuries, traumas, financial difficulties, destruction of property, health bills and the destruction of the landscape as a whole. The natural disaster caused nearly 16,000 casualties and there are an estimated 2,500 people still reported missing. Although drowning caused most deaths others include, crushed by debris, suicide and diseases caused by nuclear radiation (cancer) spilled from nuclear

From the case study above we can see that human influences were the main cause in the severity of the impact, but that’s not always the case, physical factors are just as important. This can be seen in the great Sumatra- Andaman earthquake which took place on the 26th of December 2004 and registered a 9.1 magnitude, one of the third biggest recorded quakes. The subduction of the Indo-Australian plate under the Burma plate triggered the tsunami responsible for the greatest loss of life in a tectonic event. A 15-20m slip occurred along 1600km of fault line in two phases over a period of around 3-4 minutes, the longest rupture ever recorded in an earthquake. The focus was located just 30km below sea level, which resulted in serval billion tonnes of water being displaced across

The 2004 Indian Ocean and Tsunami, everyone has heard about this tragic experience before. It is the third-largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph and had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. A Tsunami is a long high sea wave caused by an earthquake, submarine landslide, or other disturbance. For the book, Wave, there was family of four where the brother, mom and dad went to Thailand to spend their winter break. The daughter had decided to spend her winter break in New York City. In Thailand, there was a Tsunami that had struck the resort where the family had been staying at. The dad and his son went out to go and help others while the mom stayed back in the hotel lobby. Or what was left of it.

The word tsunami comes from a Japanese word meaning “Long harbor waives”. Tsunami is much known and very common in Japan because thousands of Japanese have been killed and some suffered in recent centuries. Tsunami waves generally speaking cause a lot of damages such as, killing people, destroying building, and costing million of dollars. Moreover, a tsunami is a series of great sea waves caused by an underwater earthquake, landslide, or volcanic eruption. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that is located on epicenter off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, is actually one of the worst disasters in the history of Indian Ocean that generated by the most powerful 9.0 magnitude earthquake. An aggressive

cause a wide range of deaths and lost family members or friends. One good similarity that both Tsunamis and

Waves from the beach are completely different than tsunamis since those waves are normal to see rolling in a lake or the ocean but not a tsunami. The waves you see in the ocean or lake are made by wind offshore while tsunamis are made from either an earthquake from the bottom of the ocean or a volcano in the ocean, those waves are also very small when they are compared to the gigantic waves that are called tsunamis. A single tsunami wave in the open can go up to 100 km millimeters across and that can cause a lot of damage since tsunamis waves can rise up to at least fifty feet. The size of how long a tsunami wave can cross is about one thousand American football fields which is 100 km. Like i have said before tsunami waves are gigantic and can travel very far distances, for example a tsunami wave can go about seven hundred km per hour, but when tsunamis are about a meter high if they are in the open ocean or in other words in the middle of the ocean. Once the tsunami wave gets closer to shallower areas near the coastal lines, the tsunami

A tsunami can get very high all the way to the top of the empire state building that is a 100 feet.The highest tsunami is about 1720 feet that is very high for water and it is all caused by an earthquake.Have you ever been near a tsunami if you have not they are huge it can take out almost the whole of new york city.new york is huge but it is not near the ocean so it could not take it out. When I was in new york I got the chills because there was flood warnings and I got

One of the main concerns for marine geophysicists is the peculiarity of tsunamis that impel such extensive danger. After 2004, a 9.1 earthquake induced the Indian Tsunami that killed more than 250,000 people and left a million others affected in one day, people started to observe the amount of destruction caused by tsunamis (Helal & Mehanna, 2008, p.787). The disaster was of such a magnitude that now has educated most people about the subject. The idea of it being a usual wave began to seem unlikely. Tsunamis are provoked by different phenomena than ordinary waves; mainly by earthquakes, abrupt discharges of energy that comes from the Earth´s crust in form of seismic waves, when near or under the ocean (Helal & Mehanna, 2008, p.787). The main scale used to measure an earthquake’s magnitude is the Richter scale, which quantifies its energy release on a logarithmic scale (Kearey et al. 2009, p.10). That causes a vast displacement of water in the ocean, which instigates tsunamis. The thesis of this research, therefore, is that tsunamis are more dangerous than regular waves due to their wavelength, velocity and wave period.

The travel of tsunamis is always alike. They travel fast across the ocean and end up on the shore of some country. Cited from National Geographic “Tsunamis race across the sea at over 500 miles an hour, about as fast as a jet plane. At that pace, they can cross the entire expanse of the Pacific Ocean in less than a day.” (“Tsunamis”). This goes to show just unbelievably fast tsunamis can rip across the ocean. When tsunamis cross the ocean, they are not fully formed gigantic waves rolling across an ocean. Instead, they are about five feet tall at the maximum, Gravity acts quickly against the waves it appears flat on the surface. BrainPOP explained that although the water appears flat, waves are constantly moving fast, and can extend thousands of feet deep. The deeper the ocean is, the faster the tsunami travels. When the depth gets shallower as it reaches the shore, it increases in size and becomes the big wave that many know as a tsunami. Scientists detect and measure tsunamis before they reach their destination. Stated in an article by Steven Ward, “By analyzing seismic waves, scientists can determine when and where an undersea earthquake has occurred and calculate its strength.” Therefore, they can discover tsunamis and warn the area that will be hit. Warnings are needed because tsunamis can happen at any coast in the world.