Slashdot Mirror
Underwater Landslide May Have Doubled 2011 Japanese Tsunami
sciencehabit writes An underwater landslide the size of the Paris may have triggered the worst of the tsunami that struck Japan on 11 March 2011, a new study claims. In the new study, researchers worked back from details of the ocean surface motion recorded by gauges along the Japanese shore on the day of the earthquake. Much as sound waves can help the ear pinpoint the source of a gunshot and whether a small pistol or a large cannon fired it, tsunami waves carry the imprint of the ocean floor disturbance that created them. The team concludes that during the earthquake a slab of sediment 20 km by 40 km and up to 2 km thick slid about 300 meters down the steep slope of Japan Trench, 'acting like a piston.'
I don't see how.. The Manhattan theatre holds only 581 seats with a single screen. I fail to see how a landslide that `big` would register anywhere!
I wonder what else Tim was trying to relate to... hmm...
They meant this dude: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
His piston is not that big
It's not about the size of the boat, but the motion in the ocean!
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Oh, the article should have clarified that the slab was as thick as the height of 6 Eiffel Towers, and it slid approximately 1 Eiffel Tower in distance.
That's 1.2 Manhattans in imperial.
Can we convet that to barn megaparsecs (something Google conversions can handle)?
Have gnu, will travel.
When I first read the headline ti came out as "underwear landslide" not a pretty picture.
LoC is a unit of volume or knowledge. Area is football fields [naturally, real football as played in the US, not that pansy ball kicking thing in Europe].
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Underwater earthquakes often, perhaps even usually, set off huge underwater landslides. Sometimes the tsunami from the landslide is worse than that from the quake. Quite often they will reinforce each other, at least in some directions.
So in this case it sounds like a huge earthquake acted in a normal way, but with an unfortunate direction of reinforcement. It also sounds as if it could have been a lot worse. The landslide was not huge as such things go. IIUC the one in Indonesia a year or so earlier had a larger associated landslide. And even that one is a lot smaller than some that there is evidence for. IIUC (again) a *LONG* time ago Puget Sound (in Washington on the Pacifc US coast) once had a much bigger tsunami that was triggered by an underwater landslide.
Please note: I am not an Oceanographer or even a Geologist. These "facts" are derived from general reading.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Milwaukee, WIs ?
But how many libraries of Congress was that?
All your oceans are belong to us
There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't.