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The asteroid linked to the extinction of dinosaurs, which created the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatán Peninsula approximately 66 million years ago, would have caused a megatsunami over 100 metres (330 ft) tall. The height of the tsunami was limited due to relatively shallow sea in the area of the impact; had the asteroid struck in the deep sea ...
Small tsunamis can also be caused by intense coastal storms, according to the U.S. Tsunami Warning System. These are known as meteotsunami because they are caused not by underwater earthquakes or ...
The Lituya Bay megatsunami caused damage at higher elevations than any other tsunami, being powerful enough to push water up the tree covered slopes of the fjord with enough force to clear trees to a reported height of 524 m (1,719 ft). [9] A 1:675 recreation of the tsunami found the wave crest was 150 m (490 ft) tall. [14]
Tsunamis generally consist of a series of waves, with periods ranging from minutes to hours, arriving in a so-called "wave train". [11] Wave heights of tens of metres can be generated by large events. Although the impact of tsunamis is limited to coastal areas, their destructive power can be enormous, and they can affect entire ocean basins.
A tsunami earthquake can be defined as an undersea earthquake for which the surface-wave magnitude M s differs markedly from the moment magnitude M w, because the former is calculated from surface waves with a period of about 20 seconds, whereas the latter is a measure of the total energy release at all frequencies. [2]
From the tsunami records the estimated tsunami's magnitude is (M t = 8.2), [6] much greater than expected for the seismic magnitude estimated from the observed seismic intensity (M s =7.2). [2] This earthquake is now regarded as being part of a distinct class of seismic events, the tsunami earthquake .
Tsunami waves would batter the coast for 10 hours. Inland hillsides would liquify, taking out roads and bridges. Some 620,000 buildings would be critically damaged or collapse, including an ...
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami at Ao Nang, Krabi Province, Thailand. A tsunami (/(t) s uː ˈ n ɑː m i, (t) s ʊ ˈ-/ (t)soo-NAH-mee, (t)suu-; from Japanese: 津波, lit. 'harbour wave', pronounced) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake.