Tsunami
Giant Tidal Waves & Sea Surges
News Archive 2010 - 2019
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links about DigitalGlobe is making more high-resolution satellite images available to media for free; this set is from the Banda Aceh shore in Indonesia:
A study of the danger to coastal settlements in Australia from the threat of tsunami is available at: Other interesting links for more information about tsunami are listed below: Tsunami from Asteroid/Comet Impacts
Two Decades of Global Tsunamis
Washington University Pacific Tsunami Museum, Hawaii
National Oceanic A Selection of Books About:
"Tsunamis in the "The founder and recognized leader of the Russian scientific school of tsunami researchers Sergey (1930-94) and his collaborators describe in detail the waves generated by earthquakes and accompanying phenomena in a region prone to earthquakes and where the written record allows a study of four millennia. Most of the material is quantitative information, including coordinates of the observation sites, dates, heights of tsunami run-ups, main parameters of the earthquakes, and tide gauge records. That is augmented by the electronic database created in the Tsumani Laboratory, Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics in Novosibirsk. Only geographical names are indexed.
"Tsunami: Monster Waves (American Disasters)" "Grade 4-7-Tsunamis, although not common, hold a fascination for both shore dwellers and inland inhabitants. The idea of a huge wave coming suddenly with little warning and capable of major devastation is both awesome and horrifying. This pedestrian book capitalizes on the destructive nature of these great waves."
"Tidal Waves Wash Away Cities" "Kids in grades 1-3 will enjoy this set of simple yet entertaining facts about tidal waves: from underwater volcanic action to tidal action and ocean problems, this packs in details about tidal waves and their effects on human habitation with over 30 pages including a glossary and bright photos set against black pages."
"Landslides and Tsunamis" "The study of tsunamis has been shifting away from theoretical modeling of tsunami source, wave propagation and runup toward multidisciplinary investigations, with an emphasis on field studies. This collection of papers highlights the many approaches being utilized to study landslides and tsunamis."
"Caribbean Tsunamis: "In the past 500 years, the Caribbean region has had devastating tsunamis causing incalculable damage. It is an area of relatively high seismicity, and although tsunamis are not the chief natural hazard, they have the potential to produce catastrophic regional disasters. "Today the necessity for awareness is of paramount importance. Tectonic forces continually build stress - until the inevitable release of strain that may trigger a tsunamigenic earthquake. The lack of a major tsunami in the past 57 years is due to a relative lack of relief of built-up energy, and the potential extent of the stress release grows as time elapses. The long period without relief of seismic stress buildup only increases the ominous threat of a devastating tsunami that could result from a sudden seafloor cataclysm. |
The links below are to pages that will give you more information on tsunami - the giant tidal waves that can be caused by undersea earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, and, as it has recently been realised, by the impacts of asteroids, comets and meteorites in the oceans. Their incredible destructive power has been responsible for the sweeping away of many coastal towns, villages, and inundating huge landmasses throughout history and prehistory. Following tsunami there is often very little evidence left for future archæologists to discover, and it is highly probable that much of the evidence of civilisation near coastal areas in prehistoric times has simply been wiped away by these incredible forces of nature. One recent study has discovered that, according to radiocarbon dating of sediments from the area, a giant tsunami hit the eastern coast of Scotland in 5,800 BC. Stone tools found in the sand off Inverness showed that the waves hit the area without warning following a landslide off Storegga in north-west Norway. Professor Smith, of the Department of Geography at Coventry University, told BBC News Online: "It looks as if those people were happily sitting in their camp when this wave from the sea hit the camp. Professor Smith of the department of Geography at Coventry University told BBC News Online. We're talking about two, three or four large waves followed by little ones, that would have been 5-10 metres high. These waves do strike with such force that they are very destructive. It's like being hit by an express train'." A little further south, on Moel Tryfan in North Wales, the mashed and mangled remains of marine molluscs (sea-shells) have been found in so-called 'Ice-Age drift deposits' supposedly left there when the ice-sheets melted and retreated back towards the North Pole. But the composition of the supposed ice-sheet deposits told another story. In their book "Cataclysm: Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9,500 BB", an academic study of the evidence suggesting that the flood myths of ancient times were based on archaic memories of a 'real global tsunami', or 'deluge', and which challenges the orthodox interpretation of geological history descending from the notions of a Pleistocene Ice Age theorised by Louis Agassiz in the 1820s, authors D. S. Allan and J. B. state: "Eroded and fragmentary shells occur within the 'drift' deposits on Moel Tryfaen, a mountain in North Wales rising 1,300ft (400m) above sea level. Perplexingly the species represented include not only northern but also temperate and southern forms adapted to very varied habitats. Some required deep and others shallow water, some sandy and others muddy water, and some were peculiar to shingly and others to a bare rocky environment. In stating that ice could never have brought together so varied a molluscan assemblage as this, it is hardly necessary to add that water could have - in which case the enveloping 'drift' deposits must have been similarly water-borne." In fact many of the 'peculiarities' conventionally attributed to an Ice Age simply could not have been created by the supposed advance and retreat of ice-sheets. Yet, if the many and various 'flood-myths' of antiquity, which have been passed down through millennia in the oral traditions of peoples worldwide, are based on true recollections of an 'archaic deluge', a catastrophic mega-tsunami could well have produced ALL of the phenomena now attributed to an Ice Age. These would include:
NONE of these supposed 'Ice Age Peculiarities' could have been achieved solely by the action of Ice moving horizontally across hilly terrains. The nature of Ice is such that it cannot move uphill, and, as recent scientific surveys have concluded that there were never any huge mountains at the North Pole for ice-sheets to have slid down, ONLY the turbulent waters of mega-tsunami could have brought together such jumbles of life-forms, and forcibly jammed them into the small, tight places we find them today ... Was there really a Pleistocene Ice Age? Or are the Deluge Traditions and Flood Myths of antiquity based on a sounder ancient understanding of: Tsunami Of course, it is always possible that an ocean-impact-related tsunami abruptly ended the Pleistocene Ice Age.
One of the best resources for understanding the Official Tsunami Monitoring Centres : International Tsunami Information Centre Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Tsunami Warning Center National Geophysical Data Center - Tsunami Database
West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center
Below are a selection of recent stories from our
"The great flood of 1607"
January 30, 2007, BBC Bristol, England:
It swept up to four miles inland in the Bristol area, north Devon, Pembrokeshire, Glamorgan, Monmouthshire and Cardiff - and up to 14 miles inland in low-lying parts of Somerset. But it is still not certain exactly what sparked the disaster which killed so many. For centuries it was thought high tides and severe storms were to blame, a theory accepted by Dr Kevin Horsburgh from the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, who said a massive storm surge, formed by a combination of high tides and hurricane winds, may have been to blame.
But a tsunami theory was put forward by experts from Bath and Australia in 2004, supported by evidence of deposits of sand, pebbles and shell at various locations around the Severn Estuary where flood waters swept in, including Hill in South Gloucestershire. It's believed these deposits may have been brought in from the open ocean." [Full Story]
"Anniversary of 1607 killer wave"
January 30, 2007, BBC News Online, UK: Experts believe severe flooding on 30 January 1607 in south west England and south Wales was caused by a tsunami - and not a storm surge or high tides. It is estimated 200 square miles (520 sq km) of land were covered by water. Simon Hasslett from Bath Spa University said there was currently no tsunami warning system in place. He said the research was important for informing coastal and risk management plans. The flood of 1607 has been described by experts as the worst natural disaster to hit Britain. Eyewitness accounts of the disaster told of 'huge and mighty hills of water' advancing at a speed 'faster than a greyhound can run'." [Full Story]
Below are a selection of 2010-2019 stories from our
"Evidence of Tsunamis Found at Ancient Klallam Village" May 13, 2019, Jefferson Public Radio, USA
"The oral history wasn't a myth. Tsunamis hit this tribal village five times, new study shows.
"Ancient Tsunami Tied to Volcanic Flank Collapse
February 11, 2019, EOS, USA
"The Italian island of Stromboli has long attracted residents and visitors thanks to its mild climate, fertile soils, and picturesque views.
"Prehistoric Mass Graves May Be Linked to Tsunamis" August 01, 2018, R & D Magazine, USA
"UNSW scientists have shown - for the first time - that a series of high-profile burial sites in the Pacific, Mediterranean and northern Scotland were likely related to catastrophic tsunamis.
"Highly variable recurrence of tsunamis in the 7,400 years before the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami" July 19, 2017, Nature Communications, UK
"The devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caught millions of coastal residents and the scientific community off-guard.
"What is a tsunami and how are they monitored?" November 07, 2016, Nature, UK
"A dangerous tsunami is a series of waves that can be triggered by any event that disrupts the sea floor in some way.
"Island boulders reveal ancient mega-tsunami" October 02, 2015, Nature, UK
"When the eastern flank of a Cape Verde volcano splashed into the sea some 73,000 years ago, it generated an enormous wave that rose to 170 metres of height before it crashed into a nearby island, geophysicists have discovered.
"Evidence indicates Yucatan Peninsula hit by
March 05, 2015, EurekAlert, USA
"The eastern coastline of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, a mecca for tourists, may have been walloped by a tsunami between 1,500 and 900 years ago, says a new study involving Mexico's Centro Ecological Akumal (CEA) and the University of Colorado Boulder.
"How big was the biggest tsunami ever?" December 02, 2014, ABC Science News, Australia
"What causes a tsunami? Do all underwater earthquakes cause tsunamis? And what was the biggest tsunami ever?
"Mega wave hit Oman's coast 4,500 years ago" November 03, 2014, Times of Oman, Oman
"Geologists from GUtech, in cooperation with archeologists from the Ministry of Heritage and Culture, have dug up evidence of a tsunami or severe storm that hit Ras Al Hadd about 4,500 years ago.
October 02, 2014, ABC Catalyst, Australia
"By investigating the tell-tale signs of earthquakes and tsunamis written into the landscape over the last thousand years, Japanese scientists are rewriting the rule books for disaster prevention in the Pacific.
"Traces of tsunami discovered in Gökçeada" June 02, 2014, Hürriyet Daily News, Turkey
"Archaeological work on the island of Gökçeada has revealed that an earthquake occurred in the region 4,700 years ago, followed by a tsunami.
"Tsunami created North Sea 'Atlantis' May 02, 2014, The New Zealand Herald, New Zealand
"A prehistoric land mass once connecting Britain to mainland Europe may have been wiped out by a 5m-high tsunami, according to new research.
"Indonesia cave reveals history of ancient tsunamis" December 24, 2013, The Washington Post / AP, USA
"A cave discovered near the source of Indonesia's massive earthquake-spawned tsunami contains the footprints of past gigantic waves dating up to 7,500 years ago, a rare natural record that suggests the next disaster could be centuries away - or perhaps only decades.
"Japan quake analysis points to larger tsunamis" February 08, 2013, ABC Science News, Australia
"Scientists now understand why the 2011 Japanese tsunami was bigger than expected and say we need to prepare for larger tsunamis in the future.
"Ancient Tsunami Caused Long-Term Ecosystem Change in the Caribbean" December 12, 2012, Science Daily, USA
"A detailed analysis of sediments from the island of Bonaire in the Caribbean presents convincing evidence for an extraordinary wave impact dating back some 3,300 years, even though no historical records of tsunamis exist for this island.
"Tsunami Hits Hawaii Following Earthquake October 28, 2012, Red Orbit, USA
"A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the Canadian province of British Columbia late Saturday night, leading to short-lived tsunami warnings and mass evacuations as far away as Hawaii, according to various media reports.
Geology Magazine, USA, October 2012 Edition
"This paper describes the topographic change and the recovery process, as well as the sediment sources, for tsunami deposits based on field surveys and analysis of digital elevation model data before and after the A.D. 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami at the Sendai Plain, Japan.
"Large, deepwater slope failures: Implications for landslide-generated tsunamis" Geology Magazine, USA, October 2012 Edition
"Deepwater landslides are often underestimated as potential tsunami triggers.
June 18, 2012, ABC Science News, Australia
"Professor James Goff digs up evidence of tsunamis from the past to find clues that could prepare us for future threats.
"6,000-year-old settlement poses tsunami mystery" May 09 2012, Irish Examiner, Ireland
"Archeologists have uncovered evidence of pre-farming people living in the Burren more than 6,000 years ago - one of the oldest habitations ever unearthed in Ireland.
"Tsunami Science - The Calm Before the Wave"
February 2012 Edition, National Geographic, USA: Minamisanriku, a quiet fishing port north of Sendai in northeastern Japan, disappeared last March 11. Sato nearly did too. Vött examined the site in the exploration of Paläotsunamis that have taken place over the last 11,000 years along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean. The disaster started at 2:46 p.m., about 80 miles east in the Pacific, along a fault buried deep under the seafloor. A 280-mile-long block of Earth's crust suddenly lurched to the east, parts of it by nearly 80 feet. Sato had just wrapped up a meeting at the town hall. 'We were talking about the town's tsunami defenses', he says. Another earthquake had jolted the region two days earlier—a precursor, scientists now realize, to the March 11 temblor, which has turned out to be the largest in Japan's history." [Read The Full Story] [Browse more than 122 years of National Geographic magazine — all the articles, photographs, and maps published exactly as they appeared in print but now available on 6 DVD-ROMs. Find Out More A really good buy - Ed.] "The tsunamis of Olympia"
July 07, 2011, Past Horizons, UK: This is the latest theory put forward by University Prof. Dr. Andreas Vött from the Geographical Institute of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz (JGU). Vött examined the site in the exploration of Paläotsunamis that have taken place over the last 11,000 years along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean. The Olympic-tsunami hypothesis has been put forward due to sediments found in the vicinity of Olympia, which were buried under an 8 metres thick layer of sand and other debris, and only rediscovered around 250 years ago. 'The composition and thickness of the sediments we have found, do not fit with water flow of the river Kladeos and geomorphological events such as earthquakes", said Vött. It was previously believed that an earthquake in 551 AD. destroyed the shrines and afterwards floods from the Kladeos filled the ancient buildings. [Full Story] [You can get more information about this study from the website of the Eastern Ionian Sea Tsunami Project Ed.] "Tsunami Damage near Ishinomaki, Japan"
March 15, 2011, NASA Earth Observatory, Earth Orbit:
When the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired the top image three days later, on March 14, water still inundated the city. The lower image, from August 8, 2008, shows water levels under normal circumstances.
Water is dark blue in this false-color image. Plant-covered land is red, exposed earth is tan, and the city is silver. Standing water is most evident in the flat, open places that were once fields. The most extensive flooding is around the Matsushima Air Base in the lower left corner of the image. According to news reports, several airplanes were damaged in the tsunami.
The neighborhoods immediately around the airstrip are also flooded." [NASA has just released a number of other images of the tsunami damage in Japan captured by its Earth Observatory. You can access them HERE Ed.]
Below are some videos of the tsunami that hit Japan today.
Morien Institute News Editors Comments: [It's interesting to note that the Earth was hit just before midnight UT on March 9th 2011 by one of the largest Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) for a number of years. This massive solar flare measured as an X1.5-class CME, and reached the Earth's magnetic field yesterday causing Northen Lights as far south as Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan in the United States. The NASA website, SpaceWeather.com, said that: "March 9th ended with a powerful solar flare. Earth-orbiting satellites detected an X1.5-class explosion from behemoth sunspot 1166 around 2323 UT.". They have a regularly updated Northern Lights / Aurora Photo Gallery for each month going back a number of years, and the link above is for March 2011. It is only in recent years that sophisticated spacecraft which can monitor the Sun and inner solar system for spaceweather that affects Earth have been able to accurately measure and classify the activities of our star, and interpretation of events such as CMEs is still in its infancy regarding the full spectrum of their affects on the inner planets, including our own. Today, March 11th 2011, the SpaceWeather.com, site says that: "After four years without any X-flares, the sun has produced two of the powerful blasts in less than one month: Feb. 15th and March 9th. This continues the recent trend of increasing solar activity, and shows that Solar Cycle 24 is heating up. NOAA forecasters estimate a 5% chance of more X-flares during the next 24 hours.". This dearth of X-class flares happened because of the recent 2008/2009 Solar Minimum, which was the the longest for over 100 years, and saw the longest number of days without sunspots since the Maunder Minimum that lasted from approximately 1645 to around 1715. The Maunder Minimum coincided with the Little Ice Age, a period of intense cold that Al Gore and other 'global warming scaremongers' tried to hide when they flattened-out the data to produce their now infamous "hocky-stick graph" as part of a scam to raise continuing research funds for compliant scientists, and fleece us with green taxes. It's interesting to note that the major 6.3 earthquake that hit Christchurch, New Zealand, on February 22nd 2011 was just around a week after the February 15th 2011 X-class solar flare, though any connection between these events on the Sun that can produce major radiation storms and tectonic activity here on Earth is purely speculative at present. But it is interesting to wonder what actually did trigger the Christchurch quake. It is known that pressure had been building up on the tectonic plates between Australia and New Zealand for many years. Could an X-class solar flare have provided the "straw that broke the camel's back?" - Ed] "Japan tsunami caused icebergs to break off in Antarctica"
August 09, 2011, ESA News, France: Satellite images show new icebergs were created after the tsunami hit the Sulzberger Ice Shelf. Using radar images acquired by ESA's Envisat satellite, a NASA team was able to spot the icebergs - the largest measuring about 6.5 by 9.5 km in surface area and about 80 m in thickness. The findings linking the tsunami to the calving event by NASA’s Kelly Brunt, a cryosphere specialist at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and her colleagues were published in the online Journal of Glaciology on Monday. The Tohoku 9.0 magnitude earthquake that stuck off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami with giant waves. The waves then propagated through the Pacific Ocean over 13 000 km south to the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Antarctica, causing large chunks of ice to break off and float into the Ross Sea." [Full Story] "Antarctic Icebergs Chipped off by Tsunami"
August 09, 2011, NASA Earth Observatory, Earth Orbit: Scientists have long speculated that ocean waves could cause an ice shelf to flex and break, but this is the first time researchers have observed a tsunami having this effect. Icebergs can form in any number of ways, but much of the time, the process is out of sight. Often, scientists see large chunks drifting in polar seas, and then have to work backwards to figure out the point of origin. In this case, a research team led by Kelly Brunt of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center looked ahead, not back. When the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami occurred off Japan on March 11, 2011, the ice researchers immediately looked south as the massive waves exploded out from the epicenter in the northwest Pacific Ocean. The scientists checked records for vulnerable faces of the Antarctic coast and studied models of the likely wave propagation. Within 18 hours of the earthquake, the tsunami waves had traveled 8,000 miles (13,600 kilometers) and reached the shores of Antarctica. " [Full Story] "Tsunami-Buried Lost City of Atlantis May Have Been Found"
March 13, 2011, The Epoch Times, USA: The legendary lost city may be located in mud flats in southern Spain, said a team of scientists from the University of Hartford in Connecticut. Researchers led by Hartford professor and archaeologist Richard Freund used satellite imagery, electrical resistivity tomography, digital mapping, ground penetrating radar, and underwater technology to locate the city, believed to have been submerged after a tsunami. They matched geological formations from Plato’s descriptions of Atlantis and date artifacts to the time of the lost city to see if they can confirm the existence of the city. About 2,600 years ago, Plato said that the lost city was 'an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules', according to a press release." [Full Story]
"Dozens killed as biggest quake strikes N.E. Japan
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"Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia" "A book that completetly changes the established and conventional view of prehistory by relocating the Lost Eden - the world's 1st civilization - to SouthEast Asia. At the end of the Ice Age, SouthEast Asia formed a continent twice the size of India, which included Indochina, Malaysia, Indonesia and Borneo. The South China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand and the Java sea, which were all dry, formed the connecting parts of the continent. Geologically, this half sunken continent is the Shunda shelf or Sundaland. He produces evidence from ethnography, archaeology, oceanography, from creation stories, myths and sagas and from linguistics and DNA analysis, to argue that this founder civilization was destroyed by a catastrophic flood, caused by a rapid rise in the sea level at the end of the last ice age."
"Red, Earth, White Lies: Native Americans & the Myth of Scientific Fact" "Leading Native American scholar and author of the best-selling books God Is Red and Custer Died for Your Sins, Vine Deloria, Jr., addresses the conflict between mainstream scientific theory about the world and the ancestral worldview of Native Americans. Claiming that science has created a largely fictional scenario for American Indians in prehistoric North America, Deloria offers an alternative view of the continent's history as seen through the eyes and memories of Native Americans.
"Furious Earth: The Science and Nature of Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis" from the back cover: "The Science Behind the Earth's Most Catastrophic Phenomena. If our planet is a sleeping giant, it slumbers fitfully and awakens in powerful starts. Our familiar landscape bears the scars f hidden forces at work deep beneath it. Furious Earth contains the latest science on these forces and the cataclysmic phenomena they produce - earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. Now, hard-won knowledge of these phenomena, gained often in the aftermath of disaster or through dangerous research efforts, is presented here by scientist Ellen Prager with the following experts: Stanley Willaims, Ph.D. Professor of Volcanology, Arizona State University, on volcanoes; Kate Hutton, Ph.D., Seismologist, California State Institute of Technology, on earthquakes; Costas Synolakis, Ph.D., Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Southern California, on tsunamis."
Japan's Mysterious Pyramids: YONAGUNI
A Further Selection Of Books About: |
There are so many 'flood myths', 'deluge traditions', and stories of 'sunken lands' from almost every corner of the world which have been passed down through millennia via the oral traditions of so many cultures that it is no longer 'scientific' to dismiss them as 'unscientific'.
To place no scientific value on the 'oral traditions' of the many different cultures whose ancient indigenous knowledge can be traced back many millennia is sheer folly, and such contempt for the natural science' and philosophies of peoples who still live close to nature demonstrates just how far modern science has strayed from the very nature that science is supposed to be studying.
The Morien Institute 'Marine Archaeology News Archive' offers just a small selection of stories about recent underwater discoveries which date from 1997 to 2016, and concern the mounting evidence of urban remains that suggest a global history of 'catastrophic inundations' and 'tsunami events' far greater than previously believed by mainstream academics ...
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