“I work with bait fishing, and I was at the beach on my way to work when the tsunami hit. While preparing for the day’s work, I heard some kind of

How to Read a Tsunami

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2024-12-26 11:30:03

“I work with bait fishing, and I was at the beach on my way to work when the tsunami hit. While preparing for the day’s work, I heard some kind of noise. Everyone turned and looked toward the sea. I saw it too. The water came as high as a cloud.”

A tsunami, often misunderstood as merely an oversized ocean wave, is one of nature’s most destructive forces. Scripps Institution of Oceanography seismologist Barry Hirshorn is working to provide tsunami warnings to coastal populations as accurately and quickly as possible.

“A tsunami is essentially a gravity wave,” Hirshorn explains. This term, used in scientific communities, emphasizes the role of gravity in the oscillations of water columns. Large displacements are often caused by tectonic activity: The most common source of tsunamis lies in subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides beneath another. Over time, stress builds along these fault lines, and when released, the sea floor rises or falls, displacing colossal volumes of water.

Hirshorn cites the Dec. 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami as an example: “The sea floor uplifted over a length longer than the state of California, creating a massive column of water … when the water column collapses, this energy radiates outward, creating the tsunami,” he adds. This phenomenon in fact produces not just one wave but a series of waves, which can travel vast distances with immense energy.