The Power and Deception of The Tsunami Wave (video)

Aftonbladet.se ^ | 12/29/04 | Aftonbladet

[pierrem15]

This is a little off topic, but my impression is that there have been a lot of major earthquakes in the past year. Do you know if that's true?

[Strategerist]

This is a little off topic, but my impression is that there have been a lot of major earthquakes in the past year. Do you know if that's true?

Major quakes are defined as those Magnitude 7.0 and above. In an average year there are 18 of those quakes. With one day to go, there have only been 15 of those quakes worldwide in 2004.

Unless there are 3 7.0+ quakes tomorrow we will have a BELOW average number of major quakes for the fifth year in a row.

[Peace Is Coming]

bttt

[JohnBovenmyer]

The subduction area is offshore a pretty good distance. A tsunami from there would have trouble getting into Puget Sound.

Sri Lanka was offshore a pretty good distance too. The relevant question isn't the distance, but would an offshore generated tsunami propagate into the sound. Basic HS physics taught that waves can turn corners and do other nonintuitive things. If the question hasn't been adequately modeled and studied already, it should be. The roughly third of King county who are honest and pro-American deserve to be saved. With a good computer model one could even test some Science Fiction possible defensive actions. I wonder whether dumping a couple super tankers worth of crude at the mouth of the sound would dampen the wave, if you could pump enough there in time. Or maybe set off some small underwater nukes to interfere with the wave patterns. I doubt either would work, but it would be fun to simulate such. If either would work I presume a majority of King County would vote to die rather than to install the infrastructure required.

[Strategerist]

I meant it would have trouble getting into the sound through geography. They've modeled the offshore megathrust tsunamis and not much gets in.

The Puget sound threat is from smaller quakes directly under the sound itself.

[JohnBovenmyer]

I wish these weren't streaming, i have been trying to save these files.

All these movies include links to "380k" broad band quicktime movies. Quicktime's player will let you save them. At least the Mac version does and I presume the free Windows Quicktime player will too.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Some thread said that 2004 had been a quieter than usual year for quakes and even with this 9 and the earlier 8.1 S. of Australia there would be fewer 7+ quakes than usual. Of course just one 9.0 puts us above average for Biblical level disasters. And to think we thought we'd dodged the big one not quite 2 months ago.

[Lady Jag]

Oh, crap! You're right. It let me save them with "SaveTarget As" but I was saving the HTML.

[Centurion2000]

I just watched that simulation. Looks like downtown Seattle would be TOAST when it happens.

[VOA]

NOAA computer animation model of Seattle being inundated by a tsunami from
a mere 7.3 on that fault.

I bet that's a popular video...over in the more conservative eastern side of
of Washington state!

[rolling_stone]

my impression is similar also lots of hurricanes

[Figment]

you could have a big tsunami from an earthquake directly UNDER Puget Sound.


Just like the folks in Sumatra or in the Alaska Good Friday quake in the early 60's

[Figment]

Actually poking around the net there actually was a Tsunami over 21 feet high within Puget Sound from a quake on the Seattle fault 1,000 years ago.

The USA is not immune to tsunamis. After the Good Friday Quake in Alaska one hit Crescent City California.

[Figment]

I guess it's not safe anywhere.

You hit it on the head. What is safe anyway? Any of us could be taken out by an 18 wheeler the next time we get in a car. Keep up the maintenance on your karma

[living_fossil]

In the above picture of the Seattle fault, the brown grassy area in the foreground is a marine terrace that was violently uplifted above sea level by said earthquake c. 1100 years ago.Trees never colonized it (perhaps discouraged by the natives as well as the salt and lack of soil).

see http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/pacnw/actflts/sfz/
(second paragraph under "THE SEATTLE FAULT"

If I'm not mistaken, this is Restoration Point, which George Vancouver named in 1792 and found a very pleasant place for a picnic.

http://www.civilization.ca/aborig/nwca/nwcah05e.html

George was 92 years late for the Big One, which also created some nice picnic areas on the Pacific Coast:

http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/earthquakes/bigone/detective.html

This caused considerable mayhem here (there are legends about vanishing villages and beached whales) and also killed people in Japan:

http://www.pnsn.org/HAZARDS/CASCADIA/simple_historic_records.html
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2003AM/finalprogram/abstract_63686.htm
http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/top10/fault.html

Here's the guy who tracked down the 1700 M9 earthquake:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142753,00.html
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-hs.tsunami07jan07,1,4816486.story?coll=bal-health-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

Your tax dollars at work (thank you),
AM