News and Science

The 3.7 magnitude earthquake under Whidbey Island came about an hour before most alarm clocks were set to go off, but University of Washington scientists say it should serve as a wake-up call that a much bigger quake is likely in the future.

[...] The "big one" could come from that plate slipping under the North America plate. That interface has produced quakes of magnitude 8 or 9 about every 500 years. The last one was about 300 years ago.[...] A megathrust quake would involve the breaking of a tectonic plate - a piece of the earth's outer shell - and would likely have a magnitude of about 9. The last "megathrust" quake - commonly referred to as "the big one" - happened in the Northwest in 1700.[...] The "big one" could also bring a tsunami as high as 80 to 100 feet, similar to the one that struck Sumatra in 2004.

The International Earthquake and Tsunami Conference, organized by a variety of engineering councils, began Monday with the aim to prevent losses from earthquakes through improved civil engineering practices.
The main focus of the three-day conference in Istanbul is on the Millennium Development Goals. 
Millennium Development Goals include goals such as seismically safe schools, hospitals and dwellings, which will be discussed following a series of presentations from an international panel of engineers.

[...] Tsunamis were another focus of the conference. During a discussion panel, experts pointed out that one-third of tsunamis that have taken place in the past 3,000 years have taken place in the Marmara Sea. The keynote speakers in the panel pointed out that it is important to research the characteristics of nearby failed tsunamis, which are crucial to the research in comprehensive tsunami modeling. Another emphasis of the panel was that it is crucial to determine source points under the Marmara Sea in order to determine potential effects and trends of tsunamis.

Millions of people living and holidaying along the Mediterranean coast are at risk of being hit with a tsunami, a new report warns.

The World Disasters Report, by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said there is no tsunami early-warning alert system for the region, even though it is considered to be more vulnerable than the Indian Ocean.

More than 300,000 people were killed when a tsunami struck Indonesia and southern Thailand in December 2004.

Disaster expert, Peter Rees-Gildea, said the perception that climate change is a Third World problem is changing since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and flooding caused chaos Gloucester in Britain.

WASHINGTON - June 11 -  A highly-touted new ocean-based tsunami warning system has large dead zones that undercut its effectiveness, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists also complain that several other stations are reporting sporadic data that is not useable.

NOAA completed its Deep Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) network of 39 stations covering the Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico in March 2008. NOAA claims that the “DART network serves as the cornerstone of the U.S. tsunami warning system” yet a significant portion of the stations are not functioning.

This was announced at the conclusion of the Fourth Session of the Inter-governmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami and other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (ICG/CARIBE EWS-IV) in Martinique. The ICG is responsible for coordinating the establishment and operation of a Tsunami Warning System for this region as part of the mandate given to UNESCO's Inter-governmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) to maintain global coverage.

Pounding El Niño storm waves during the winter of 1997-98 exposed an ancient drowned forest along the central Oregon shoreline.

Over 200 tree stumps dating to the time of Jesus became an instant tourist attraction. Through dendrochronology, or the study of tree rings, scientists have been able to confirm that these spruce and cedar trees were submerged during a massive earthquake along the offshore Cascadia subduction zone about 300 years ago. Exposure to saltwater killed but preserved the trees, sand dunes and estuarine mud then buried them for 300 years.

Geological observations combined with carbon-14 dating and dendrochronology from sites along the coastlines of Northern California, Oregon and Washington provide clear evidence for a great earthquake in 1700 that ruptured at least 600 miles of the Cascadia subduction zone and produced a large tsunami.

Whitianga residents would have only 90 minutes to get out of town if a Pacific Ocean tsunami was headed toward the beachfront town.

And the unique shape of the town's inner bays meant the damage caused by the series of waves would be devastating.

Coastal scientist Vernon Pickett gave the stark reminder of Whitianga's vulnerability to tsunami at Thursday's Environment Waikato environment committee meeting."What makes Mercury Bay so special is the shape of the bay leading into Buffalo Beach," he said."It's what we call a box within a box. It enhances the risk of damage during a tsunami."[...]

The water from a Kermadec tsunami would reach about 1.8km inland and would wipe out much of the developed area of Whitianga.[...]

Whitianga had experienced three tsunamis since European settlement in 1808, 1877 and 1960. Part of the computer modelling was based on first-hand experiences in the 1960 event.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (BGIS) -- It could be catastrophic if Barbados and other Caribbean islands do not pay greater attention to their ability to respond to tsunamis and other coastal hazards.

This is the view of Head of the Barbados Delegation to the fourth Session of the Inter-governmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami and other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (ICG/CARIBE EWS -IV), Judy Thomas.[...]"To date, Barbados has been fortunate, but given our topography, population and a concentration of tourism-related infrastructure along our vulnerable coastlines, there is a level of risk which must be anticipated and planned for. This includes not only tsunamis but other coastal hazards,"  Thomas said.

[...]The Head of the local Department of Emergency Management (DEM) also revealed that over the past 500 years, there had been 105 tsunami events reported in the Caribbean and adjacent regions, "with 39 of these occurring within the last 100 years or so." Barbados experienced effects from the tsunami generated by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, she said.

[...]A new report studies the issue of what would happen if a tsunami hit the Oregon Coast and what can be done if there is not enough time to run to higher ground.The Cascadia Subduction Zone off the coast of Oregon, Washington and northern California can cause earthquakes and associated tsunamis. Researchers believe the last such event occurred in 1700, causing a tsunami of such magnitude that it hit local shores and swept across the Pacific Ocean to Japan.A subduction zone earthquake could be followed by a major tsunami 10-20 minutes later, forcing locals to making a "vertical evacuation" to the roof of a tall structure.

[...]In Oregon, about 100,000 residents are in the tsunami inundation hazard zone every day, officials say, some with long travel distances to higher land.

The Cannon Beach report on tsunami evacuation buildings can be obtained on the web at http://www.ci.cannon-beach.or.us/docs/PS/CBTEB%203-20-09%20version.pdf.

JAKARTA, INDONESIA - A massive underwater mountain discovered off the Indonesian island of Sumatra could be a volcano with potentially catastrophic power, a scientist said Friday.
[...] The cone-shaped mountain is 4,600 metres (15,100 feet) high, 50 kilometres in diameter at its base and its summit is 1,300 metres below the surface,(...).

[...] The ultra-deep geological survey was conducted with the help of French scientists and international geophysical company CGGVeritas.
The scientists hope to gain a clearer picture of the undersea lithospheric plate boundaries and seafloor displacement in the area, the epicentre of the catastrophic Asian quake and tsunami of 2004.
The tsunami killed more than 220,000 people across Asia, including 168,000 people in Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra.

A powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Honduras has killed at least six people after it shook the country for more than 30 seconds.

A tsunami alert was maintained for about 90 minutes for the Central American nation and its neighbours Guatemala and Belize. The 'quake struck at 2:24am, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Its shallow 10km (six mile) depth added to the power of the tremor.[...] The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued the tsunami watch immediately following the quake, but lifted it later when no reports of giant waves were made. The last major earthquake to rattle the Central American nation was a 6.7 magnitude temblor in July 1999, the USGS said.

On the evening of Jan. 26, 1700, residents of several villages along the east coast of Japan recorded a series of tsunami waves washing up on their shoreline.     Two hundred and sixty-five years later, as an oceanography graduate student, I made an interesting discovery that would take 20 more years to connect to the Japanese tsunami of 1700. I was studying sediment cores collected from an undersea canyon 150 miles off the Oregon coast. This feature, Cascadia Channel, is much like Monterey Submarine Canyon and begins not far off the mouth of the Columbia River and extends for hundreds of miles across the deep ocean floor.     What struck me as I opened up these ancient sediment cores was the very regular appearance of 20 to 30 feet of submarine mud flow deposits that had been left behind in this undersea canyon. Underwater mud flows, called turbidity currents, are very fluid, are driven by their greater density than seawater, and can flow hundreds of miles across the ocean floor.

[...]Twenty years after my initial discovery and the birth of plate tectonics, evidence for historic tsunamis and periodic great earthquakes began to be recognized in a number of estuaries and bays along the coast of Washington, Oregon and Northern California

Mumbai: The deadly Tsunami hit parts of India and swept across Andaman and Nicobar islands in December 2004. Now filmmaker Rajesh Shera narrates a touching story of struggle from the Tsunami-hit islands, which are used as the backdrop in his film.

[...]Ocean of An Old Man has done its festival rounds and has been appreciated by critics. Now the filmmaker is looking forward to its commercial release this week.(-->watch video)

[...]Scientists have long warned that the Maldives, an archipelago nation of nearly 1,200 islands in the Indian Ocean, will be wiped out by rising sea levels in the coming decades.[...]But some recent data challenge the widespread belief that the islands are destined to disappear — and a few mainstream scientists are even cautiously optimistic about their chances for surviving relatively intact beyond the next century.[...]Kench(remark:University of Auckland in New Zealand)said his studies of the Maldives show the islands can adjust their shape in response to environmental changes, such as the rising seas and warmer temperatures predicted in the next century. Kench suggests the islands might move onto their reefs and build vertically, offsetting the potential threat of sea level rises.

Following the devastating 2004 Asian tsunami, many scientists assumed the Maldives would be damaged. But Kench and his colleagues not only found little evidence of island erosion, but also that the tsunami had washed sediment ashore, making some islands taller than they were before the catastrophe.

The risk of disaster worldwide is increasing, says a new UN report.

Climate change, environmental degradation and badly planned urban development are more likely to affect populations around the world. The report warns that millions of lives are in jeopardy because proper risk assessment is rarely carried out, particularly in developing countries. The UN says money spent on risk reduction is a cost-effective way to reduce deaths and injuries.

The Asian tsunami of 2004, or last year's earthquake in China are natural phenomenon which can't be prevented.

Two new studies suggest the Lake Tahoe region has gone longer than usual without a large earthquake and may be due for a magnitude-7 temblor capable of spawning a tsunami that could flood shoreline communities.

The research targeting three major faults was conducted by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego.

They determined that earthquakes as large as magnitude-7 historically have occurred every 2,000 to 3,000 years in the Tahoe basin.

[...]"These studies taken together show that the West Tahoe Fault is capable of a magnitude-7 earthquake — similar to large earthquakes that have occurred on the nearby Genoa Fault — but with the added danger of nearly 500 meters (1,600 feet) of overlying water, which is capable of spawning a large tsunami wave," said Graham Kent, a research geophysicist at Scripps.

Despite recent wire service reports, and some specialist websites, reporting an unstable volcano on Dominica, and undersea earth tremors off the coast of Grenada, Dr Barbara Carby, Director of Hazard Management Cayman Islands (HMCI) said that these are unlikely to pose any danger to Cayman. According to British geologist Richard Teeuw, one side of the volcano called Morne aux Diables (Devil’s Peak) shows signs that it might collapse sometime in the future, sending million tons of rock into the sea, causing a tsunami. “I can’t say what the precise risks are of an earthquake in the Eastern Caribbean causing problems which might affect Cayman,” Dr Carby said. “But I do believe that the risks would be slight. Distance tends to dissipate the power and height of a tsunami, and Cayman is quite far from Dominica.”

[...]The disaster management official added that Cayman has in fact recorded several tremors in the past “because we lie very close to the boundaries of the Caribbean plate, where there is potential for undersea movements, undersea earthquakes and landslides”. But Jamaica had a greater risk, said Dr Carby: “Cayman has several innate advantages compared to Jamaica; firstly because we are further from this undersea boundary than Jamaica; and also because the island of Jamaica actually has some very large faults which are considered ‘active’.”

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) has been awarded a contract by the Thai government to produce and deliver a sea-based system that can warn against the threat of a tsunami.

The so-called Tsunami Buoy system will replace the current NOAA Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting Tsunamis (DART) buoy system in the Bay of Bengal, provided to Thailand in 2006.

The system itself consists of three subsystems: a surface communications buoy, a buoy mooring and a pressure recorder that sits on the sea floor.

AUSTRALIAN tsunami scientists will meet officials from the federal Attorney-General's office next month to discuss research vital for understanding risks to the nation's undersea data links.The scientists, from the nation's leading tsunami authority, believe that 70 per cent of Australia's undersea cable capacity would be destroyed in a single stroke if a tsunami similar to the one that devastated coastal Thailand and Sri Lanka in 2004 were to strike Hawaii. Hawaii is the main thoroughfare for cables linking Australia to the rest of the world.

ISTANBUL - The second biggest concern after whether or not Istanbul will be hit by another large earthquake is the possibility of a tsunami threatening its immediate shores.
Geology Professor Şükrü Ersoy from Yıldız Technical University said Istanbul’s next big earthquake would create a tsunami based on historical findings of an excavation of Yenitepe. And according to Ersoy, because Istanbul’s coastlines are narrow, the tsunami waves are liable to cause serious damage to vehicle traffic and buildings in that corridor.

[...]The facts that Istanbul’s topography is not straight and its shores are narrow are disadvantages when it comes to tsunamis, according to Ersoy, recalling that even small waves may be deadly on shores approximately 150 to 200 meters wide. "In the earthquake of 1894, the sea first ebbed by 50 meters than the returning sea waves destroyed the whole Ottoman navy on shore

The word "tsunami" generates an emotional response, much like earthquake or shark. It's just one of those scary things that is beyond our control and one that we never want to experience. The 225,000 people that died the day after Christmas in 2004 from the Indian Ocean tsunami was a cruel reminder of the forces that lurk offshore around the Pacific rim.

While most tsunamis result from subduction zone earthquakes in deep trenches, they can also occur where oceanic volcanoes erupt catastrophically or where large landslides run down steep underwater slopes. The biggest tsunamis that might ever occur come from asteroid impacts, but so far, no large ones have struck since humans have been on the scene.[...]

(...)tsunami hazards are something that city planners, public safety officials and structural engineers ought to be aware of and plan for. There have been six tsunamis large enough to cause significant damage along the coast of California over the past 200 years.

A huge wave crashed into the New York City region 2,300 years ago, dumping sediment and shells across Long Island and New Jersey and casting wood debris far up the Hudson River. The scenario, proposed by scientists, is undergoing further examination to verify radiocarbon dates and to rule out other causes of the upheaval. Sedimentary deposits from more than 20 cores in New York and New Jersey indicate that some sort of violent force swept the Northeast coastal region in 300BC.

It may have been a large storm, but evidence is increasingly pointing to a rare Atlantic Ocean tsunami.

New mapping technology plots inundation paths and escape routes

[...]The heavily populated coast of California, along with Hawaii and Alaska, faces the greatest risk of tsunami damage in the United States. In 1946, an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands generated a tsunami that struck Hawaii. Wave heights reached an estimated maximum of 55 feet, 36 feet, and 33 feet on the islands of Hawaii, Oahu, and Maui, respectively.[...]Now, boosted by technological advances in computing power, tsunami modeling, GIS, and NOAA's DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) network, researchers are creating a new set of tsunami inundation maps for coastal California. The maps are based on a computational code that calculates how a tsunami evolves over variable ocean depth and topography (surface shapes and features), and then computes the area that will likely be inundated by the tsunami.

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- On Wednesday OSU researchers rolled out the school's biggest man made tsunami ever. The wave easily toppled a six foot concrete wall. Researchers say the wave-maker will allow them to better understand the effects of tsunamis on structures. They say it's only a matter of time before one strikes Oregon.

[...]Scientists say the tsunami would result from a massive earthquake about 75 miles off the coast. They believe the Cascadia Subduction zone generated a magnitude 9 earthquake here in the Pacific Northwest 300 years ago, and they say stress is building again.

[...]Researchers say in the event of a tsunami off the Oregon coast, it would hit land within 30 minutes. That’s not enough time to get everyone out, but it is enough time to get people up into tsunami-proof high-rise buildings.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2009) — The enduringly popular theory that the Chicxulub crater holds the clue to the demise of the dinosaurs, along with some 65 percent of all species 65 million years ago, is challenged in a paper to be published in the Journal of the Geological Society on April 27, 2009.

[...]From El Penon and other localities in Mexico, says Keller, "we know that between four and nine meters of sediments were deposited at about two to three centimeters per thousand years after the impact. The mass extinction level can be seen in the sediments above this interval."Advocates of the Chicxulub impact theory suggest that the impact crater and the mass extinction event only appear far apart in the sedimentary record because of earthquake or tsunami disturbance that resulted from the impact of the asteroid."The problem with the tsunami interpretation," says Keller, "is that this sandstone complex was not deposited over hours or days by a tsunami. Deposition occurred over a very long time period."

KUALA LUMPUR, April 24 (Bernama) -- The presence of a large number of squids along the shores of Pantai Batu Rakit in Terengganu over the past few days is not an indication of a Tsunami threat(...).

(...)the migration may have been due to a change in the water temperature in the deep sea compared with warmer conditions along the shores or due to a change in tide.

[...]On Sunday, residents along Pantai Batu Rakit were deeply concerned by the presence of squids in large numbers along the shores when some residents had linked their presence to an imminent Tsunami threat.

Minister responsible for Disaster Preparedness Charles Savarin has assured that persons should not be alarmed about tsunamis occurring here since there is no scientific indication that they will occur despite what was reported in the local and international media recently.
[...]The EOS Journal article stated that lead researcher Richard Teeuw of the University of Portsmouth indicated that if Morne aux Diables here were to collapse, it would result in a major earthquake or volcanic eruption and possibly trigger a tsunami wave which would impact the coast of Guadeloupe.

According to Teeuw, a million-tonne chunk of rock is likely to fall into the sea and would produce tsunami waves up to 10 feet high.[...]

Savarin explained that in the study, from which the article was based, was focused on the north of the island, and considered the result of a major landslide with thousands of tonnes of debris triggering a tsunami of a certain size. He explained that Dominica being a volcanic island makes these disasters inevitable but the question of what period of time it can occur is the issue to be concerned about.

New York — To better respond to natural disasters, governments should invest more in risk reduction for vulnerable communities and make sure to reflect gender concerns in the recovery processes, says a report presented today at the United Nations.  Involving local communities in the recovery process, according to “The Tsunami Legacy: Innovation, Breakthroughs and Change” report, is as instrumental as installing high-tech early warning systems.  The report also highlights the need for governments to incorporate disaster risk reduction measures in national development plans.

London, April 22 (ANI): A team of seismologists has developed an early-warning system that can gauge how long an earthquake rumbles, thus helping tsunami warnings to reach vulnerable coastlines within minutes.

[...]Sure enough, rumbles that produced high-frequency waves for more than 50 seconds had a high probability of generating a damaging tsunami wave.

Using this information, they developed an algorithm to filter out quake duration from seismic data.

If adopted in an early-warning system, “it could provide a warning within 10 to 15 minutes”, said Lomax.

April 21 (Bloomberg) -- An unstable volcano on the Caribbean island of Dominica risks causing a tsunami that could endanger 30,000 people on the nearby island of Guadeloupe, a team of U.K. researchers found.

One flank of the volcano, called Morne aux Diables, or Devil’s Peak, shows signs of collapse and could send a million tons of rock into the sea(...)

[...]

An initial collapse in Dominica could loosen another 3 million tons of rock farther up the slope, causing more landslides and triggering 5-meter waves, Teeuw said. That compares with waves as high as ten meters that occurred in the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, he said.

Other volcanoes whose eruption or collapse has triggered tsunamis in the past include Italy’s Stromboli, and Krakatoa and Tambora in Indonesia, Teeuw said. Hawaii is another potential area where the phenomenon could occur, he said.

PARIS (AFP) — Tsunami waves unleashed by the collapse of an unstable volcano on the Caribbean island of Dominica would hit the highly populated coast of nearby Guadeloupe within minutes, according to a new study.

"It?s not a case of 'if' this landslide and tsunami will happen, but 'when'," lead researcher Richard Teeuw, a geologist at the University of Portsmouth, said in a statement on Tuesday."The trigger will probably be a major earthquake, occurring after the heavy rain and coastal erosion of the hurricane season. It could happen in a hundred years or it could happen next week."

[...]A million-tonne chunk of rock from the unstable volcano, called Devil's Peak, is poised to crash into the sea, and would produce tsunami waves up to three metres (10 feet) high, the geologists calculated.

PORTLAND — Geologists now say there is a 10 to 14 percent chance of a major earthquake and tsunami hitting the Oregon Coast within the next 50 years.

Further study by scientists of the Cascadia Subduction 50-75 miles off the Oregon Coast, where many quakes begin, has found about 38 quakes of magnitude 8 or more over the past 10,000 years.

TASMANIAN authorities are preparing a comprehensive action plan to warn the public about tsunamis.

[...]A set of scientific and historical reports about the threat of tsunamis is being collated by state and federal government bodies. Though the reports are yet to be released, the SES(State Emergency Service)has provided the Sunday Tasmanian with preliminary information which shows:
• About 16 "large-wave events" have been recorded anecdotally since European settlement in Tasmania 200 years ago.
• A scientific study of coastal areas in the South-East indicates two or three "tsunami-type events" may have hit Tasmanian shores in the past 4000-5000 years.

Two earthquakes, both measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale, hit South Pagai in Mentawai Islands, West Sumatra early on Friday morning the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency has reported.

(...)The Mentawai Islands lie just of Padang, the capital of the earthquake-prone province. Some experts expert have warned that the area bear the brunt of Indonesia's next major quake.
Seismologists have also warned that Padang, which lies near the colliding Indo-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates, is most at risk as the final segment along the stretch is shifting to unleash a massive amount of energy.

Australian authorities sent out an alert early this morning to assure Australians there was no threat from possible tsunamis sparked by an undersea earthquake - half way around the world.

Despite the 6.8 magnitude earthquake hitting tens of thousands of kilometres away, off the South Sandwich Islands, the Bureau of Meteorology's Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre remained on alert until it became certain there would be no adverse effects for Australia or its territories.

"If there's a large earthquake, we can see an effect a long way away," senior forecaster Brett Harrison said.

Government has reassured the public it will swing into action and ensure people's safety in the event of a tsunami.

(...)This, the first international tsunami exercise to be held in the northwest Atlantic, was entitled LANTEX 09, and was organised by the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, which sends advisories to the US and Canadian coastal regions.

(...)"In Bermuda we are talking about a sudden rise in sea level. If this was to happen in the summer, swimmers would be at risk from dangerous rip currents and there would be the potential for damage to the infrastructure, specifically the effect of seawater on electrical systems and generators. (...)"

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of storm-related deaths from a super cyclone that hit the eastern coast of India in 1999 finds that villages shielded from the storm surge by mangrove forests experienced significantly fewer deaths than villages that were less protected.

(...)The study does not assess mangroves’ ability to reduce deaths from tsunamis, Vincent cautions, because of key differences in their wave dynamics. Storm surges have shorter wave lengths than tsunamis, and relatively more of their energy is found near the surface of the water. Mangroves’ ability to protect villages against tsunamis has been a point of controversy in the scientific and policy communities since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

[...]To alert homeowners and beachgoers that they are in tsunami territory, the city of Los Angeles has begun posting blue and white "TSUNAMI HAZARD ZONE" signs with an image of ominous-looking waves.[...]

While a tsunami threat to the Golden State is real, the potential for killer waves is far less likely than the earthquakes, wildfires, landslides and floods that plague the nation's most populous state.

According to scientists, there's a 99.7 percent chance that California will be struck by a magnitude 6.7 earthquake or larger in the next 30 years. No such calculations exist for the potential of a tsunami.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., April 9 (UPI) -- U.S. geoscientists say the 2007 Solomon Islands earthquake might point to previously unknown increased earthquake and tsunami risks.

Professor Kevin Furlong of Pennsylvania State University and his colleagues studied the unusual tectonic plate geography and the sudden change in direction of the April 1, 2007, tsunami-generating earthquake.

(...)"This area has some of the fastest moving plates on Earth," said Furlong. "It also has some of the youngest oceanic crust subducting anywhere."

SEATTLE – Monday’s 6.3 magnitude earthquake that killed nearly 300 people in Italy serves as a reminder that the Pacific Northwest could suffer the same fate at any moment.

Now, scientists in California have come up with a number of scenarios that show a mega earthquake could cause high raise buildings in Seattle and other parts of the Northwest to collapse.

(...)

The last so-called “megathrust” quake to hit the Northwest happened 309 years ago. The Juan de Fuca plate under the Pacific Ocean slipped some 60 feet under the North American plate. It set off a magnitude 9 earthquake that sent tsunamis into the coasts of North America and Japan.

COOS BAY, Ore. -April is National Earthquake and Tsunami Awareness Month, and for those living on the coast, it's even more important to be alert and prepared for these events.

(...)

Tsunamis, which are brought on by an earthquake in the sea-floor, can be either distant or local.  The difference is how much time you have until it strikes.  And if it's an off-shore Pacific tsunami, likely caused by the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, folks could have just minutes to evacuate.

According to the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, Information Officer Jame Roddey, "If we get this big earthquake, that's your warning for the local tsunami, which is basically a wall of water that races toward the Oregon coast at about 500 mph, gets here in about 10-15 minutes after the earthquake and can do incredible, devastating damage."

British mathematicians say they've created a formula that can be used to predict tsunamis and how destructive the tsunamis might become.

[...] Johnson and Professor Adrian Constantin of the University of Vienna, said they discovered that the number and height of the tsunami waves hitting the shoreline depends critically on the shape of the initial surface wave in deep water.

[...]  it is possible to use the initial wave pattern to work out how the wave will evolve and, importantly, how it might interact with the complicated motions close inshore to produce the tsunamis that we experience,

Scores of people drowned in their homes yesterday when a decaying dam collapsed, releasing a freshwater tsunami. At least 58 people were killed in Cireundeu, a suburb of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, when the earthen dam holding back the Situ Gintung lake collapsed and released 2 million cubic metres (70 million cubic feet) of water in a wave 6 metres (20ft) high.

[...]The 40ft dam which created the artificial lake was 76 years old and built during the Dutch colonial period. It gave way after a stretch of very heavy rain.

It was only a test of your local tsunami alert system. But next time, it could be real.

On Wednesday morning, federal, state and local emergency offices issued a live, three-county test of the tsunami warning system in an effort to prepare coastal residents and beach-goers for the next big wave to strike the North Coast.

[...]Among other alert mechanisms used in the test was a reverse calling system that dialed the phone numbers of residences within some of Humboldt County's tsunami evacuation zones and left a pre-recorded message.

SYDNEY (AFP) — A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Papua New Guinea on Wednesday morning, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties on the ground.

[...]The quake came just one week after a major 7.9-magnitude tremor rattled the South Pacific nation of Tonga, sending people in low-lying areas of Fiji fleeing for higher ground after a tsunami warning.

NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga (AP) — A powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck Friday in the Pacific Ocean, shaking an erupting underwater volcano off Tonga's main island and raising fears of increased lava and ash flows, officials said.

There were no immediate reports of injury or damage from the quake, which was felt more than 1,875 miles (3,000 kilometers) away in New Zealand. A tsunami warning for islands within 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) of the epicenter was canceled two hours later.

[...]A check of the volcano Thursday from a boat two miles (3.2 kilometers) away from the vent showed about "a 10-meter (33-foot) depth of lava at the vent" standing up out of the ocean.

Tectonic Summary

The broad-scale tectonics of the earthquake region are dominated by the relative convergence of the Pacific and Australia plates. The Pacific plate subducts westward beneath the Australia plate at the Tonga trench.

[...]When you're talking about tsunami generating earthquakes, size doesn't matter as much as location. In Monday's event, the earthquake was too deep to pose any serious threat."You have to have an earthquake which changes the shape of the ocean bottom too fast for water to flow out of the way and for that to happen in the Hawaiian islands you need a 6.8, 6.9 earthquake," said geophysicist Gerard Fryer.

Deep-sea drilling into one of the most active earthquake zones on the planet is providing the first direct look at the geophysical fault properties underlying some of the world's largest earthquakes and tsunamis.

The Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment (NanTroSEIZE) is the first geologic study of the underwater subduction zone faults that give rise to the massive earthquakes known to seismologists as mega-thrust earthquakes.

[...] It uses GPS technology to detect the horizontal motion of the sea floor. These scientists say they can use this technology to predict a tsunami before a tsunami even starts. This is a new way of looking at how an earthquake causes a tsunami, says Tony Song.

JAKARTA (AFP) — At least 42 people were injured and hundreds of homes and buildings damaged when a major earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sulawesi island near the Philippines early Thursday, officials said.                                  The 7.2-magnitude undersea quake struck at 1:34 am local time (1734 GMT Wednesday), prompting Indonesia's geophysics agency to issue a tsunami alert, which was later revoked.

SURATHKAL (DK): "We have developed the best tsunami early warning system, making it possible alert people, well before it hits the Indian coastline," said P G Diwakar, head of the regional remote sensing service centre (RRSSC), ISRO, Bangalore.

CHENNAI: "I want to see her at least once,'' says Sergeant Ravi Shankar of the Indian Air Force, breaking down. The sergeant, posted in New Delhi, is visiting Chennai in the hope that he may finally be reunited with his daughter Apurva Kumari who, if alive, would be 12 years old today.

Hema Vijay tells the tale of gritty Anjamma, who turned into an unlikely leader after her village in Cuddalore was swept away by the killer tsunami.

Very little is left of the original Pillemedu today. A tiny fishing village, falling under the Killai Special Panchayat of Cuddalore district in Tamil Nadu, it was literally swallowed up by the sea when the killer tsunami struck in December 2004.

Aline of massive boulders, each up to 30 feet high and weighing almost 2,000 tons, on the western shore of Tonga could be evidence of the most powerful volcano-triggered tsunami ever, dwarfing even the 1883 Krakatau (Krakatoa) tsunami, which is estimated to have been over 100 feet high. Matthew Hornbach, of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, gave a briefing on the boulders to other scientists at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Houston, Texas.

An earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale has struck the western coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island.