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One Day Tsunami Research Paper

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It was around 7:00 on the morning of December 26th, 2004 that planet earth shook. An earthquake with its epicenter at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, just west of the Island of Sumatra, registered an astonishing 9.5 on the Richter scale. It was so powerful it caused earth to wobble in its rotation. This was an event that affected the earth globally. (1) Butts pg.104 In her book Stewart writes, “In fact the earthquake that caused the tsunami was enough to affect the earths rotation so much as to make that day December 26th to actually be a few milliseconds shorter than it should have been”. (2) Stewart pg. 10 The earthquake sent a Tsunami racing faster than a jet plane toward the southern shores of Asia as well as the east coast …show more content…

It was warm, sunny, and clear. The southern coast of Asia is filled with everything from elegant resorts to poor fishing villages and even some isolated tribes who live amongst themselves with out any outside contact. On this day fishing boats were out on the Indian Ocean and tourists many of who were vacationing from far away as Finland, Sweden and even the United States were out enjoying the water, the beaches, and hotel pools. These local fishermen, tourists, and even the hotel workers had little idea of what was to come. And what was to come was and underwater earthquake and subsequent tsunami unlike anything they had seen or heard of before. As some tourists played in the water and lay on the beaches a few of them noticed that the ocean was acting a bit strange. In some areas the normally beautiful turquoise blue ocean was turning dark. In other areas the water began to recede exposing many fish and ocean material usually not exposed as far from the beach as these were. At first many tourists and locals alike ran out to look at and collect the fish that lay exposed. For some of the local fishermen it was a windfall as all they had to do was go out and fill their baskets and sacks with fish they would normally work hours fishing to catch. They were a few people however that knew something ominous was about to happen. One tourist named Tilly Smith an eleven-year-old …show more content…

How does an earthquake cause a tsunami? We live on Earths crust. The earths crust is broken up into many parts and fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. These puzzle pieces are called “tectonic plates” At times these plates move towards one another and push together. At other times they move apart away from each other. The plates usually move slowly so we do not feel the movement beneath us. There are times however that we do feel the movements. These movements that we feel are called earthquakes as they shake the ground beneath us. There are two kinds of plates one is referred to as the “continental plate” and the other is called the “oceanic plate”. Just as their names imply the plates that lie under the continents are continental plates and those that lie under the ocean are “oceanic plates”. As we have learned in class many of the worlds earthquakes occur in what is called the ring of fire. The ring of fire is a vast area surrounding the Pacific Ocean. The edges of some of Earths tectonic plates meet in this area. Since the plates meet up there they can bump into each other. They can also move away or slide past one another. When this happens it can cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Another factor in this formula for earthquakes are something called faults. Faults are large fractures in the Earths crust. These fractures are found at the edges of the tectonic plates. This is where most earthquakes happen. When an

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