New Findings Super-0Sized US Tsunami Threat 80-Foot Waves Blasted Indonesia, Scientists Now Say
80-Foot Waves Blasted Indonesia, Scientists Now Say
By Tom Paulson - Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter
8 February 2005
From: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/211012_tsunamiscience07.html
http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.net/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=53656
Scientists studying the Indian Ocean tsunami have discovered startling evidence that the killer waves, at least for one coastal area in northern Indonesia, were much larger than earlier believed.
The new findings, of keen interest worldwide to researchers seeking insights into the mechanics of this disaster, also translate into a disturbing suggestion that the experts have significantly underestimated the magnitude of the tsunami threat in the Pacific Northwest and perhaps to coastal communities around the Pacific Ocean.
"It's just staggering," said Andrew Moore, a scientist at Kent State University who was on a research team, led by Yoshinobu Tsuji of the University of Tokyo, that recently returned from studying the wave's trail of destruction on the west coast of Sumatra.
Moore, Tsuji and their colleagues found preliminary evidence the tsunami's height along an extensive section of shoreline south of the city of Banda Aceh averaged about 80 feet above sea level, with "run-ups" on inland slopes often reaching well over 100 feet. They estimated the wave's average velocity on shore at 45 feet per second.
"It's mind-boggling to think about," said Vasily Titov, a mathematician and tsunami computer modeler at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. The lab, operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is host to some of the world's top tsunami scientists.
These findings, Titov said, will almost certainly prompt significant revisions to basic theory and the tsunami models -- as well as a serious upgrade in the predicted size of the tsunami expected from a major quake off the coast of Washington and Oregon.
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