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Tsunami or melting glaciers: What caused ancient Atlit to sink? By Ofri Ilani At the bottom of the sea, some 300 meters west of the Atlit fortress, lies one of the greatest archaeological mysteries of the Mediterranean basin. About 20 years ago, archaeologists discovered a complex of ancient buildings and ancient graves with dozens of skeletons at the underwater site of Atlit-Yam. The team of marine archaeologists that excavated the site, headed by Dr. Ehud Galili of the Israel Antiquities Authority, came to the consclusion that an ancient settlement once existed there, but sank beneath the surface of the sea...

TAPEI, Taiwan - Officials say a powerful earthquake has struck at the Pacific Ocean off southeastern Taiwan, but no damage or injuries have been reported. Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau says the magnitude 6.8 quake hit at around 9:57 a.m. on Sunday (0157 GMT Sunday). It was faintly felt in Taiwan.

THE death toll in cyclone-ravaged Burma could hit 500,000 – more than TWICE the total killed by the Boxing Day Tsunami. Last night’s warning came as it emerged that 17 Britons, including ex-pats and backpackers, were still missing. Sources said 200,000 people were already dead or dying. But the figure could rise to HALF A MILLION through disease and hunger if the nation’s hardline army rulers continue to block aid for the devastated lowlands of the Irrawaddy Delta. That would dwarf the 230,000 deaths across South East Asia in the 2004 catastrophe. Nyo Ohn Myint, of exiled opposition party The...

Rising food prices 'a silent tsunami' By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent Last Updated: 1:12pm BST 22/04/2008 Rising food prices are a "silent tsunami" which threaten to be as devastating as the worst natural disasters, an international conference has been warned. Josette Sheeran, of the World Food Programme told Gordon Brown and other political and business leaders that the international community needed to respond as effectively to the hunger crisis as it did to the 2004 tsunami which killed 250,000 and left 10 million destitute. "This is the new face of hunger - the millions of people who were not in...

African inflation could cause "humanitarian tsunami" Brussels Tue Apr 8, 10:02 AM ETAFP/File Photo: People shop for groceries at a supermarket in the Borrowdale Brooke suburb in Harare. Soaring... BRUSSELS (AFP) - Soaring prices of basic foodstuffs could cause a "humanitarian tsunami" in Africa, EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel warned Tuesday. "A world food crisis is emerging, less visible than the oil (price) crisis, but with the potential effect of real economic and humanitarian tsunami in Africa," Michel said in a statement after a meeting with African Union Commission chief Jean Ping. Ping said the soaring prices represented a "major...

Astronomers have captured the first footage of a solar "tsunami" hurtling through the Sun's atmosphere at over a million kilometres per hour. The event was captured by Nasa's twin Stereo spacecraft designed to make 3D images of our parent star. Naturally, this type of tsunami does not involve water; instead, it is a wave of pressure that travels across the Sun very fast. Details were reported at the UK National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast. In a solar tsunami, a huge explosion near the Sun, such as a coronal mass ejection or flare, causes a pressure pulse to propagate outwards in...

Forecasting Tsunami Threats Through Layers of Sand and Time Map Of The Bay Of Bengal The catastrophic Indian Ocean event in December 2004 that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries – including 15,000 in India – was hardly a one freak occurrence. It could happen again. Newswise — Azhii peralai: from the deep … large waves. This is the expression for ‘tsunami’ in Tamil, the oldest language in southern India. For an ancient dialect to have its own phrase for destructive waves triggered by earthquakes, the people of Tamil Nadu likely experienced tsunamis periodically through the centuries, says Halifax...

PARIS (AFP) - "The sea was driven back, and its waters flowed away to such an extent that the deep sea bed was laid bare and many kinds of sea creatures could be seen," wrote Roman historian Ammianus Marcellus, awed at a tsunami that struck the then-thriving port of Alexandria in 365 AD. "Huge masses of water flowed back when least expected, and now overwhelmed and killed many thousands of people... Some great ships were hurled by the fury of the waves onto the rooftops, and others were thrown up to two miles (three kilometres) from the shore." Ancient documents...

Indonesia issued a tsunami warning on Monday after a powerful quake struck off the western coast of Sumatra island. The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.2 and had the "potential to cause a tsunami," Indonesia's geophysics agency said in a statement.

Earthquake

Slowly Strangling America's Golden Goose© 2006 J. Marvin HerndonTransdyne Corporation   Imagine: You wake up tomorrow and find that America’s judicial system has changed. Now, prosecutors can present secret witness testimony and only provide their own brief excerpts or summaries to the defense; judges are no longer independent, they have been replaced by the prosecutor’s boss. Your first thought, “Now, we will get much needed criminal convictions.” Then, “Ohmygosh! Are we in deep yogurt! We have seen all that before, in the Spanish Inquisition and in virtually every totalitarian regime on Earth, so we know what will happen. Soon...

Tsunami threat hangs over southern Italy 05 February 2008 NewScientist.com news service Southern Italy's active volcanoes mean that living in the region is not for the risk-averse. Less well known, though, is the threat from the sea. Tsunamis occur around once a century in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1908, a magnitude 7 earthquake created a tsunami that almost destroyed the Italian cities of Messina and Reggio Calabria. Stefano Lorito of the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology in Rome and his team used historical data to estimate earthquake risk for three different fault zones in the Mediterranean region, and simulated...

Mega-tsunami theory disputed February 03, 2008 SUPPOSED evidence Australia has been subject to prehistoric tsunamis up to 20m in height over the past 10,000 years could just be the result of Aboriginal occupation, a major conference is set to hear tomorrow. Archaeologists from the Australian National University say the theory about the mega-tsunamis, which has influenced the development of emergency service plans in Western Australia, is not supported by evidence. In 2003 Australian geological researchers suggested prehistoric tsunamis over the past 10,000 years were much larger than those recorded since European settlement, including findings of surges up to 20m in...

The effects of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 are only too well known: It knocked the hell out of Aceh Province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, leveling buildings, scattering palm trees, and wiping out entire villages. It killed more than 160,000 people in Aceh alone and displaced millions more. Similar scenes of destruction were repeated along the coasts of Southeast Asia, India, and as far west as Africa. The magnitude of the disaster shocked the world. What the world did not know was that the 2004 tsunami—seemingly so unprecedented in scale—would yield specific clues to one of...

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - Tsunami-like waves created by an earthquake may have triggered the world's largest known hydrothermal explosion some 13,000 years ago, a federal scientist says. The explosion created the Mary Bay crater that stretches more than one mile across along the north edge of Yellowstone Lake. Debris from the explosion has been found miles away. Lisa Morgan of the U.S. Geological Survey told a gathering of scientists over the weekend at Mammoth Hot Springs that an earthquake may have displaced more than 77 million cubic feet of water in Yellowstone Lake, creating huge waves that essentially unsealed...

An enormous underwater landslide 60,000 years ago produced the longest flow of sand and mud yet found on Earth. The landslide off the coast of north-west Africa dumped 225 billion metric tonnes of sediment into the ocean in a matter of hours or days. The flow travelled 1,500km (932 miles) - the distance from London to Rome - before depositing its sediment. The work, by a British team of researchers has been published in the academic journal Nature. The massive surge put down the same amount of sediment that comes out of all the world's rivers combined over a period...

A three-metre tidal surge is predicted to surge down the English Channel in the next 12 hours posing an "extreme danger to life and property", experts have warned. Coupled with storms and high tides, the wave could leave swathes of the east coast under water, according to the Environment Agency. A combination of gale force winds off the coast of Scotland and high tides are expected to cause floods which could breach sea defences. • Nine severe flood warnings issued by Environment Agency • Surge expected to hit east coast in next 12 hours • Police on standby to evacuate...

The Bureau of Meteorology says it does not expect an earthquake that happened south of New Zealand will generate a tsunami that will pose any threat to Australia. Earlier this afternoon, the weather bureau issued a tsunami bulletin warning people in coastal areas in Tasmania and south-eastern mainland Australia to listen to news updates. But while New Zealand emergency services are on alert, there now appears to be little threat to populated areas. The quake's epicentre was near the uninhabited Auckland Islands, around 500 kilometres south-west of the New Zealand south island city of Invercargill. According to the European-based...

JAKARTA, Indonesia—Indonesia issued a tsunami warning Friday after a powerful earthquake jolted Sumatra island. **This is all for now. Just breaking.**

Magnitude 7.1 - KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION, INDONESIA 2007 September 13 03:35:26 UTC Earthquake Details Magnitude 7.1 Date-Time Thursday, September 13, 2007 at 03:35:26 UTC Thursday, September 13, 2007 at 10:35:26 AM at epicenter Location 2.223°S, 99.564°E Depth 10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program Region KEPULAUAN MENTAWAI REGION, INDONESIA Distances 165 km (105 miles) SSW of Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia 345 km (215 miles) WNW of Bengkulu, Sumatra, Indonesia 635 km (395 miles) SSW of KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia 900 km (560 miles) WNW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 8.3 km (5.2 miles); depth fixed by location...

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A massive earthquake shook Indonesia on Wednesday, killing seven people, injuring 100 and triggering a small tsunami that hit one city on the island of Sumatra, authorities said. Tsunami warnings were issued for much of the Indian Ocean region. The 8.2-magnitude quake off Sumatra badly damaged buildings along the coast and could be felt in at least four countries, with tall buildings swaying as far as 1,200 miles away. It was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks, the strongest of which registered at a magnitude of 6.6 and triggered a second tsunami alert for Indonesia, which...

Warning of tsunami greater than 2004 By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 05/09/2007 Tens of millions of people who live in the Bay of Bengal face the threat of a tsunami as massive as the one that devastated the Sumatran coast in 2004, a leading geologist warns today. Satellite images showing Banda Aceh before (top) and after (bottom) the 2004 tsunami While the Boxing Day 2004 disaster took the scientific community by surprise, killing around a quarter of a million people, one geologist who had sounded the alert about the dangers in the Indian Ocean now says...

LIMA, Peru — A powerful earthquake (7.9) shook Peru's coast near the capital on Wednesday, reportedly killing at least 17 people as it toppled buildings and caused many residents to flee homes. Authorities said the quake had generated a small tsunami but it wasn't destructive. Peru's highly respected Cable news station Canal N reported that the 7.9 magnitude quake had caused a church to collapse in the city of Ica south of Lima, killing 17 people and injuring 70. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake hit at 6:40 p.m. (7:40 p.m. EDT) about 90 miles southeast of Lima at...

Small tsunami waves in Japan's Hokkaido, no damage Thu Aug 2, 2007 10:53AM IST TOKYO (Reuters) - Small tsunami waves of up to 30 cm hit the west coast of Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday after an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 off Russia's Sakhalin island, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injury, and only light shaking was detected in some Hokkaido towns. Television cameras trained on the ocean showed no change in sea levels. "We didn't feel the earthquake," Shinkichi Kudo, a spokesman for Wakkanai city...

Major Quake Likely in Middle East, Survey Finds Kate Ravilious for National Geographic News July 26, 2007 In A.D. 551, a massive earthquake devastated the coast of Phoenicia, now Lebanon. The disaster is well-documented, but scientists had struggled over the years to locate the earthquake fault. Now a new underwater survey has uncovered the fault and shown that it moves approximately every 1,500 years—which means a disaster is due any day now. "It is just a matter of time before a destructive tsunami hits this region again," said Iain Stewart, an earthquake expert at the University of Plymouth in the...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A powerful earthquake off eastern Indonesia triggered a tsunami warning Thursday and sent panicked residents fleeing from buildings, authorities and witnesses said. The magnitude 7 quake struck under the Maluku Sea at a depth of 20 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. Its epicenter was more than 130 miles north of Ternate city. Indonesia's geological agency issued a tsunami warning that was broadcast on national television.

Tsunami siren stirs anger in Aceh An earlier alert had sent thousands fleeing in panic Residents near the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province have disabled a tsunami warning system. The residents cut the power to the siren on a tsunami warning tower by throwing rocks at it. They were angered by a false alarm that sent thousands of people in the capital and a nearby area rushing from their homes to higher ground on Monday. Many people in Aceh are still traumatised by the 2004 tsunami in which thousands were killed. A false alarm on Monday morning in the Kaju...

QUAKE MEASURING 6.5 JOLTS CENTRAL INDONESIA, TSUNAMI WARNING ISSUED-STATE AGENCY

Source: University of Chicago Press Journals Date: April 30, 2007 Was Bristol Channel Hit By A Tsunami? Science Daily — On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Britain's largest natural disaster, the author of Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard, reveals strong new evidence that the Bristol Channel was devastated by a tsunami on January 30, 1607. On that day, historical accounts describe a storm in the Bristol Channel, flooding more then 500 km2 of lowland and killing 2,000 people. "Despite the recent Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, tsunamis along most coastlines are currently viewed as an underrated hazard," write Edward...

Strong earthquakes hits Japan 2007/4 3 minutes ago TOKYO - A strong earthquake struck near islands in southwestern Japan Friday, prompting authorities to warn that the area could be hit by a small tsunami. The Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami advisory after the second and larger quake, saying that islands in the area could be hit by waves as high 18 inches. People living on the island were being warned to stay away from the coast. Miyakojima is about 1,130 miles southwest of Tokyo. Japan is one of the world‘s most earthquake-prone countries.

Tsunami victims hunt for food By Nick Squires in Sydney Last Updated: 1:33am BST 04/04/2007 Video: Devastation of the Solomon Islands (Click on site to see) Desperate survivors of the tsunami that hit the Solomon Islands scavenged for food and drinking water yesterday as authorities said the number of deaths had reached 28 and was likely to rise. A day after a powerful earthquake unleashed a 16ft wall of water on the western part of the South Pacific country, up to 25 aftershocks hit the region. Scientists said that more tsunamis could follow. The tremors spread further fear among the...

Dozens feared dead in Solomon Islands tsunami Staff and agencies Monday April 2, 2007 Guardian Unlimited (UK) Dozens of people were feared dead today in the Solomon Islands after an undersea earthquake caused a powerful tsunami to sweep across the low-lying South Pacific nation. The quake, and a series of aftershocks, prompted a tsunami alert across much of the Pacific region, with beaches closed and ferries cancelled as far away as Sydney amid fears of a disaster on the scale of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, which killed more than 250,000 people. Although the alert elsewhere was scaled...

A TSUNAMI alert has been issued for parts of the Pacific - including Australia - after a strong earthquake near the Solomon Islands. The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 7.8, jolted the South Pacific Ocean at 6.40am (AEST). The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre has issued a tsunami warning for Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Nauru, Chuuk, New Caledonia, Pohnpei, Kosrae, Australia, Indonesia, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and Marshall Island. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology's National Meteorological and Oceanographic Centre said Queensland's Barrier Reef Islands and Willis Island in the Coral Sea could be affected. Any tsunami could hit Willis Island...

TOKYO — A strong earthquake struck Japan early Sunday, killing at least one person, violently shaking buildings and triggering two very small tsunamis that hit the coast, officials and media reports said. The quake hit shortly before 10 a.m. off the north coast of Ishikawa prefecture (state), Japan's Meteorological Agency said. It had a preliminary magnitude of 7.1. A small tsunami of 6 inches hit shore around 10:18 a.m., public broadcaster NHK said. A second tsunami of similar size hit minutes later down the coast. Television footage from the quake zone showed buildings shaking violently for about 30 seconds. NHK...

Earthquake hits off Japan coast An earthquake of magnitude 7.1 has struck off the west coast of Japan's largest island, Honshu.The quake was felt as far away as Tokyo, but so far no casualties or damage have been reported. The authorities have issued a tsunami warning for the Ishikawa prefecture, with waves of up to 50cm reported. The epicentre of the quake, which struck at 0944 (0044 GMT) was 300km (200 miles) north-west of Tokyo, the country's meteorological agency said. The focus of the tremor was at a depth of 50km (30 miles) below the seabed off the Noto...

Source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Date: March 23, 2007 The Next Great Earthquake Science Daily ? The 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and resulting tsunami are now infamous for the damage they caused, but at the time many scientists believed this area was unlikely to create a quake of such magnitude. In the March 23 issue of the journal Science, a geophysicist from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute urges the public and policy makers to consider all subduction-type tectonic boundaries to be "locked, loaded, and dangerous." Subduction Zones (blue curves) and tectonic boundaries (brown curves) with filled circles showing locations of known earthquakes of M7.5...

Published: March 12, 2007 at 8:39 AM Scientists study May's Tonga earthquake ST. LOUIS, March 12 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led team of seismologists says it has determined why last May's major earthquake in Tonga did not cause a large tsunami. Professor Douglas Wiens at Washington University in St. Louis and colleagues in Australia, Japan and Tonga said although a Pacific Rim tsunami warning was issued following the May 3, 2006, magnitude 8.0 quake, the resulting tsunami was very minor and caused no damage. Tsunamis generally result from shallow-thrust earthquakes, which occur when the seafloor is pushed downward beneath the land...

Breaking on MSNBC...

Asteroid threat demands response, experts warn 16:26 17 February 2007 NewScientist.com news service Ivan Semeniuk, San Francisco If the asteroid Apophis hits Earth in 2036, it could slam into the Pacific Ocean, generating a tsunami that could devastate the west coast of North America (Illustration: Don Davis/NASA) Kamchatkans and Venezuelans beware. A 20-million-tonne asteroid could be heading your way. Californians have even more reason to worry - the asteroid is more likely to hit the Pacific Ocean, triggering a tsunami that could devastate the west coast of North America. These are among the scenarios projected for asteroid Apophis, which researchers...

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 8 (NNN-BERNAMA) -- The Kuala Lumpur War Crime Commission chaired by former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad heard nine charges against US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard for the sufferings of the people in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. The charges against the US and its allies were presented by the legal counsel on behalf of the war crime victims, Matthias Chang, before Dr Mahathir and the other five commission members at the final day of the three-day war crimes conference organised by the Perdana Global Peace...

The devastating Tusnami was precursor to what is coming in 2012. Toba in Sumatra can explode 100 times more violently than what happened 74,000 years back. The last supervolcano to erupt was Toba 74,000 years ago in Sumatra. Ten thousand times bigger than Mt St Helens, it created a global catastrophe dramatically affecting life on Earth. Scientists now find through extrapolation cycle study that the 74,000 years back super volcano in Toba, Sumatra was the warm up for what may be coming in 2012. Around Toba, increasing harmonic tremors have started after the Tsunami two years back. It would devastate...

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's Meteorological Agency issues tsunami warning for country's east coast after magnitude 8.3 earthquake in northern Japan.

Dating a massive undersea slide Sid Perkins From San Francisco, at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union Pieces of moss buried in debris deposits along the Norwegian coast have enabled geologists to better peg the date of an ancient tsunami and the immense underwater landslide that triggered it. Carbon dating of the newly unearthed moss suggests that the landslide occurred about 8,100 years ago. Sometime after the end of the last ice age, the largest landslide known to geologists took place off the coast of Norway. Called the Storegga slide, this slump of seafloor sediments included about 3,000 cubic...

Tsunami aid sent to an Indonesian province has freed government funds for the lashing of women for purported violations of Islamic law, a report said Sunday. Militant Islamists in Indonesia's Aceh Province now impose Shariah law and pay moral vigilante forces to harass women and stage frequent public beatings, The Times of London reported. More "Shariah police" than regular police are on the local government payroll, with many of them aggressive young men, the newspaper says. International aid workers say the flow of foreign cash for reconstruction has allowed the government to spend scarce money to enforce such laws as...

Tsunami aims at Philippines after quake 5 minutes ago TOKYO - A 3-foot-high tsunami was headed for the eastern coast of the Philippines on Tuesday after an earthquake struck off the coast of Taiwan. The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.2, Japan's Meteorological Agency reported.

About half of the billions of dollars donated by individuals, companies and governments worldwide to help the victims of the southeast Asian tsunami two years ago has still not been spent, the BBC said. According to figures obtained by the broadcaster from a database compiled by the United Nations Department for Aid and Development, several foreign governments have also only given only a small proportion, and at times none, of the money they promised. Of the 6.7 billion dollars (5.1 billion euros) pledged, about a tenth has yet to be delivered, and only 3.4 billion dollars has been spent thus...

Tsunami survivors given the lash Michael Sheridan and Dewi Loveard, Banda Aceh Disaster donations help Islamic vigilante force impose punishments on women WHEN people around the world sent millions of pounds to help the stricken Indonesian province of Aceh after the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, few could have imagined that their money would end up subsidising the lashing of women in public. But militant Islamists have since imposed sharia law in Aceh and have cornered Indonesian government funds to organise a moral vigilante force that harasses women and stages frequent displays of humiliation and state-sanctioned violence. International aid workers...

Nearly two years ago when a massive tsunami pounded SE Asia, particularly impoverished Indonesia, millions of people gave aid to what was seen as a good cause. Several countries opened up their pocketbooks and gave money to the nations devestated by the waves. I gave money to the cause, though it was a paltry amount. At the time of the generous giving, lending support was seen as a win-win situation where those in need would receive aid they so desperately needed and it would help win the hearts and minds of the world’s most populous Muslim nation in Indonesia. The...

Etna awakes with storm of fire and lava By Malcolm Moore, Rome Correspondent (Filed: 18/07/2006) Mount Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, threw fire and rocks more than 800ft into the air yesterday. Spectacular: The explosions are coming from two holes near to the top of the volcano Etna, which is almost 11,000ft high, sits 18 miles from Catania on Sicily's east coast. Several villages lie on its lower slopes, but the Italian government said yesterday that the lava was flowing away from them, and that there was no immediate danger. The explosions are coming from two holes near...