Posted on 12/27/2004 10:12:00 PM PST by COEXERJ145
HONOLULU (AP) -- The earthquake-driven tidal wave that devastated coastlines from Asia to Africa registered in the Pacific Ocean as far away as the United States and the coast of South America, experts said Monday.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck near Indonesia generated tsunamis that killed more than 22,000 in 10 countries as it spread west and north across the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.
But the energy generated by the deep ocean waves also traveled to the Pacific, said Stuart Weinstein, a geophysicist with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center on Oahu.
"We recorded tsunami waves along the coast of South America, on the coast of American Samoa, in Fiji, even Mexico, and the west coast of the United States," Weinstein said.
"It's been a multi-ocean tsunami," he added. "It's probably the first multi-ocean tsunami since Krakatoa."
The eruption of the volcano on the island of Krakatau on Aug. 27, 1883, generated a massive wave that swept over the shores of nearby Java and Sumatra, killing 36,000 people.
(Excerpt) Read more at nctimes.com ...
be prepared folks, this will be on the next Greenpeace fundraising video.
We have already had the envirowacko seminar callers today. Turns out "we are digging too much". (never mind the earths crust is more like beach sand than a hard shell)
Doomsday scenarios will abound.
First I've heard California was affected. Any further information?
Hilo, Hawaii. A tsunami sensitive place.
The massive tsunamis created by the quake were so powerful that they spread into and across the Pacific Ocean, causing the sea to fluctuate almost a foot in San Diego and nearly 9 feet in one city on Mexico's west coast, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
22 millimeter increase in San Diego!
American scientists upon studying seismic ocean waves deemed the term "tidal wave" rather unscientific and in need of replacement. Because the Japanese had studied earthquakes extensively and were using the term "tsunami," the Americans adopted "tsunami" to replace the unscientific "tidal wave."
One problem: the Japanese term "tsunami" literally translates to "tidal wave." Apparently nobody had thought to ask the Japanese. The mediots repeat the same error with the same explanation to this day.
American science, as parochial as ever.
Tsunami translates as "harbor wave" not "tidal wave."
Surf's Up Dude! LOL
I am curious as to the source. If you are right, it's one on him, and still technically inaccurate.
Any of about a million sites on google will give the translation of tsunami as "harbor wave."
A lot of sort of feel-good Urban Legends sort of hinge on inaccuracies like that....
COWABUNGA DUDE !!!
I've also read "wave in port." If you are familiar with tidal action you are aware that a "tidal bore" is a wide fronted wave that moves up a harbor with an incoming tide, having an appearance very similar to, although smaller than a seismic event. The most famous of these occur in long narrow harbors such as the Bay of Fundy or up rivers, such as the Amazon where the tidal bore can be 12 feet in height. We have one near San Francisco in Tomales Bay.
Same thing; and as it was explained to me by an oceanologist, same error.
Look wut ah found!
Tsunami is one of those words, like "jokulhlaup", "avalanche", or "nuee ardente", that captures what it is uniquely.
I'm reading about the big rainstorms in California, and I'm wondering if this is an after-effect of the quake in Asia?
The question is, what does it capture? From what I've been told by one who should know (back in the early 80s when the word first showed up), the term "tsunami" was originally applied to a tidally generated wave.
Which leaves open the question: is there a more accurate term/word to use to describe a seismically-generated ocean surface (gravity) wave than tsunami?
How about "seismowave" cuz dere be mo wave wit duh seismo.
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