An interview of a USGS rep I listened to said they knew of the quake almost instantly but it took an hour for them to calculate the epicenter.

Video from Thailand as the water came in. Takes a moment to load.

SEA-EAT blog has contact information and related links.

AZDR, I forgot to thank you for that site, thanks!
Thank's too Bill for the "1 hour" USGS info.
Althea, maybe i missed it but where did someone blame the victims?

Vgkg, maybe I'm a little overly critical. Going back to

1) Monte: "The largest problem with any tsunami warning system is the ignorance of the general population. ..."

2) SoCal: "I was shocked by the number of stories related by tourists who watched the water recede from shore and had no idea what that might portend. I thought everyone knew what that meant: Head for the hills!!!."

(I wouldnt have known what the receding water meant.)

Followed by

3) Bill: "Kinda like yellow or green sky before a tornado. Lots of folks don't know."

I read these posts as meaning that the victims were in some way responsible because of their lack of knowlegde of earthquakes. I don't mean to offend any of the poeople I quoted. Inquiries of that nature have been posed by many others.

I see Althea.
I for one cannot picture ignorance as a source for blame and those statements above didn't strike me as blame. If any blame can be placed it should be directed at those authorities involved who were not ignorant but knew of the potential and failed to act upon it. I suppose there is a "fog of disaster" element here to be considered also.

Thank -you for the picture of the map. I am sorry about being off topic. Sarah

You know these things now Althea. :)

There is not a lot people can do with signs of impending doom. Kinda like the headlights of the truck moments before it crashes into you. Once you see the signs you have to act quickly. Perhaps if someone understood the meaning of receding water they might have had enough time to move a mile inland. If they didn't hesitate. If they didn't lose time warning others. If they didn't dally getting their children. If they had a means of immediate rapid escape.

If I were on the beach and saw the water recede suddenly, I would know it's checkout time from the Earth Motel. There is no way I could run a mile. There is no way I would abandon my wife on the beach who also could not run a mile. I would make haste for the closest path off the beach. Hopefully we could get to our car, get down the road, and get out of Dodge. Cross our fingers. Maybe. Perhaps.

Bill
who has been through yellow sky a few times and the last one shifted the roof on the masonry building a foot dropping all the ceiling lights on the floor, then the gas main broke, then flames shot out 4 feet or so from the pipe catching the wall on fire, then the rain came controlling the fire, then my co-worker and I got a wrench on the pipe to turn it off, then we sat for hours in my truck since his had been crushed by a tree. And the roads home had been blocked by other trees. It all happened in about 15 minutes ("hey, the radio says we might get a tornado" - "hey, look at the sky ... SH*T, GET DOWN" boom thump crash bang thump thump thump roar roar roar roar etc etc etc heart beat jumps up to about 250 as I dive for a doorway)

I am amazed by the some company's efforts to get help for the victims. If you go to Apple and Amazon home pages, the only thing you will find is a link for assistance to the victims. Nothing about sales or products. Sort of refreshing.

Ryan, when I lived down in Playa Del Rey, I told friends that if I ever saw or heard that that Santa Monica Bay was receding, I was driving inland as fast as I could. Most of them didn't know why. Blame it on a lack of education or ignorance of the general populace. Pick it. I can't see many others who don't live near an ocean or an earthquake prone area to know what that means either. Sort of a Kansan trying to deal with an earthquake and a Californian dealing with a tornado (no offense to either).

Bottom line, no one is to blame for the quake, and you really can't blame too many people now for the lack of a tsunami warning. We don't even have an early warning system on on the eastern seaboard. If a tsunami hit somewhere on the east coast, I don't want to even imagine the toll it would take here.

And in sadder news, the death toll is up near 116,000.

FYI from CNN.

"Indian state issues tsunami alert

Thursday, December 30, 2004 Posted: 1:24 AM EST (0624 GMT)

NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) -- The state government in India's Tamil Nadu state, one of the areas hardest hit by Sunday's Indian Ocean tsunami, issued a tsunami alert on Thursday and warned people to leave coastal areas.

Police said aftershocks in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, near the centre of the huge earthquake that caused Sunday's tsunami, were "likely" to cause high waves.

Witnesses said police sirens were blaring on beaches in Tamil Nadu and residents were running away.

The death toll in India is more than 10,000, out of a total figure of more than 80,000 people, more than half of whom died in Indonesia's Aceh province."

VgKg,

I did some quick research on the seismic velocity of the P and S waves that propogate from the epicenter and found the following:

P waves (compressional waves) travel at a velocity between 1.5 and 8.0 kilometers per second through the Earth's crust. Compressional waves result in a back and forth motion in the direction of the waves travel. An example can be made by stretching a Slinky and then releasing a small clump of compressed coils from one end. The area of compressed coils will travel along the stretched slinky much a a P wave travels through the Earth.

S waves (Shear waves) travel at a velocity between 60 and 70% of the P wave velocity or about 1.0 to 5.0 meters per second through the Earth's crust. Shear waves result in a side to side motion at 90 degrees to the direction of the waves travel. An example of a shear wave is the hump that can be made to propogate along a stretched rope if one end is suddenly moved up and down.

Both of these wave types are used to locate the epicenter of an earthquake. Since the velocity of both the P and S waves vary in rock, but have a relatively constant relationship to each other, the arrival times for the P ans S waves will get farther apart at a predictable rate. The further the epicenter is from the recorder, the greater the arrival time separation.

Since both waves are required, the arrival of the slower S wave is necessary before any calculation can begin. Using the fastest estimated velocity for the S wave, it would take about an hour for the S wave to reach the USA from the other side of the world where the earthquake occurred. Using the slower estimated S wave velocity, it could be as long as 5 hours.

For any kind of useful warning, the detectors that located the epicenter would have to be much closer and I suspect those that first reported the earthquakes location were.

It requires calculations from a minimum of three different recorders to pinpoint the location of the epicenter. The arrival of the S wave at the most distant of the three locations would determine the absolute minimum time to determine the earthquake location. This does not include calculation and error checking time, let alone the time required to transmit the information to the necessary authorities.

Each detector location generates a locus of possible earthquake locations forming a circle with a radius equal to their calculated distance to the earthquake. The epicenter will be located at the common intersection of at least three different location's circles. Also, the farther away from the epicenter, the greater the potential for error in the calculation due to the uncertainty in the seismic velocity of the P and S waves.

Thanks Monte, I appreciate that research! thought for certain these events could be computed much quicker by assuming that shock waves traveled much faster...and you know what they say about assume...but in this case one vowel is left out = assme.

Bill, I hear ya. That's why I say if I were watching CNN while at Cape Hatteras and they reported an earthquake anywhere on the floor of the Atlantic - you'd only see me as a blurrr..

At my work place we just recieved this notice below, hopefully it's only precautionary and will not come to light :

"The terrible disaster affecting southeast Asia will certainly create
a number of public health challenges in the immediately affected
areas. However, there is the possibility that these events may lead
to a much larger pandemic influenza problem. The relief effort has
brought a number of people from around the globe to a region not only
affected by the tsunami but also affected by avian influenza. It is
possible that the [local] population in the area might have some
innate immunity due to repeated exposure to avian influenza. However,
with the influx of immune-naive foreign aid workers, there seems to
be a potential for spread into people who may be much more
susceptible. It is a safe assumption that hygienic conditions in the
area are going to be lacking for some time. In addition, many of
these workers might almost suspect that they will come down with an
illness because of the circumstances, and may simply shrug off the
1st signs and symptoms. As they return to their countries of origin,
they may unwittingly depart during the prodromal phase of illness
only to act as the index cases of pandemic flu in their countries.

It would be prudent for federal, state, and provincial public health
departments to set up surveillance systems to monitor the health of
individuals who traveled to help with the tsunami recovery efforts."

Vgkg,

For areas with substantial earthquake detection systems in place, such as in southern California in the vicinity of the San Andreas strike-slip fault system, location of a fault can be determined much more quickly due to the close proximity of the detectors, number of detector locations, and the type of detector.

The most common type of seismograph is simply a glorified high mass pendulum set into the bedrock. This type of detector, unfortunately, lacks the ability to determine the travel direction of the P and S waves, just the amplitude and arrival time. They are however, very effective in that manner.

In some areas, arrays of accelerometers set in the bedrock are used to detect the shock waves produced by an earthquake event, in place of the conventional seismograph. An array of three accelerometers, each one oriented in one of the three normal spatial coordinate directions (X,Y,Z), can detect the direction and distance to the event if sufficiently accurate rock property data is available in the area of the sensors. This type of detailed data is only feasible when the detection area is relatively small. As the detection area gets larger, the number of possible travel paths induces too much error.

As each type of wave arrives at the accelerometer array, the wave's energy imparts an acceleration component to each accelerometer in relation to the orientation of the accelerometer and the direction of the wave's travel.

As an example, if the P and S waves happen to be travelling in the X direction, the P wave would impart all its accelation in that direction while the S wave would impart all its energy to either the Y and Z accelerometers or proportionally to both. Magnitude of the earthquake is determined, in a similar manner as with the conventional seismograph, by measuring the amplitude of the waves.

The mathematics involved in analyzing the accelerometer data, in this case, would determine the direction vector to be parallel to the orientation of the X accelerometer and the arrival times of the P and S waves would produce the distance along that vector to the location of the event. The math will also allow the determination of direction for any other directions of arrival as well. Hence, one device can produce the location of the event and the magnitude. However, information from devices at other locations would provide more confidence in the results.

Variants of this same technology are used in my trade to determine an induced fracture's location and orientation during hydraulic fracturing stimulation of oil and gas wells. However, as I mentioned, the use of accelerometers has limited area coverage due to errors induced by the inhomogenous and anisotropic nature of most rock formations.

Interesting Monte, that may explain why (from the news report I heard last nite) the Australian authorities tried to alert surrounding nations about a potential tidal wave within an hour after the seaquake hit?
Shax! what's the newz on your end? Anything to add? vgkg

Thanks for the info Monte. However, because of all of the seismic activity in the Pacific "Ring of Fire" basin, there should be quite a few sensors in the area. Although it may take 5 hours to reach the US mainland, it should be much less to reach other stations in Japan, Taiwan, and other monitoring stations in the area. They should have been able to pinpoint the quake within a much shorter timespan, within a half hour at most I would guess.

After rereading your post, I got this notion. It seems to make sense. Predicting a tsunami, that's another animal.

Althea,

have you never been surprised by the ignorance of people? My statement should in no way be constued to mean that I "blame" the victims. I realized after I made the statement (and my wife read over the post just now and told me that she didn't know that either-mea maxima culpa) that my interest in such phenomena prompted me to learn something about it. My wife has sat with me and watched some of the same programs on Discovery (when we still had cable and/or satellite) but never picked up on that. I caught on when listening to a children's story about a tsunami when I was 7 or 8. Even when exposed to information, we don't necessarily absorb it if we are not interested, or don't recognize the significance of that information. Now you can be surprised at my ignorance of that basic concept (I know I've heard that somewhere before but never had it brought home to me like that).

Ryan

AzDesertRat,

I suspect that it was first detected and reported by seismograph stations in the areas you mentioned. As you stated, the area should have several seismograph stations due to the "ring of fire" proximaty. I suspect the main delay in making the call to the authorities is due to the analysis and error checking. Add to that, the problems with dispersing the information in a third-world nation and previously mentioned language and govermental bureacracy problems and I don't find it as surprising as some that a delay occurred.

Another problem with the automatic determination of an impending tsunami in this particular case and sending a warning may have been the relative proximity of the fault's location to a land mass. There may have initially been some uncertainty of whether the earthquake actually occurred under the sea or on land. A land based earthquake would not have initially generated any concern of a tsunami. That would be some of the error checking that could be done to confirm the accurate location of the earthquake as more locations reported the event, but that would take more time.

This is the sequence of events reported in India Express.

"Govt got wind 1 hr before waves hit Chennai
Disconnect between agencies: Met runs late, guess where first alert mistakenly sent?

Posted online: Thursday, December 30, 2004 at 0221 hours IST

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 29: At 7.50 am on Black Sunday, more than one full hour before the tidal waves hit the Tamil Nadu coast, the top brass of the Indian Air Force knew that the Car Nicobar Air Base had been inundated.

But it was only 41 minutes laterduring which time the waves were heading westthat the first communique went out from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) to the Government. And the Crisis Management Group, the Governments nodal emergency response unit, met at 1 pm by when the tsunami had come, killed and gone.

And guess who got this first IMD communique? It was sent at 8.54 am to the residence of Murli Manohar Joshi, former Science and Technology Minister rather than his successor Kapil Sibal.

Its always easier to find faults with the benefit of hindsightespecially in an unprecedented disaster like this onebut an investigation of the sequence of events after the quake hit Sumatra at 6.29 am shows a glaring disconnect between different agencies of the Government. And highlights how precious timethat could have been used to issue warnings and maybe save some liveswas lost.

Consider the sequence of events:

At 7.30 am, we were informed by our Chennai unit that coordinates the logistics for the Car Nicobar base about a massive earthquake near Andamans and Nicobar, Air Chief S Krishnaswamy told The Indian Express today.

But communication links went down in the Island Territories, the Chennai unit could only raise Car Nicobar base on the high frequency set at 7.50 am ... the last message from Car Nicobar base was that the island is sinking and there is water all over.

At 8.15 am, the Air Chief says, he asked his Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Operations) to alert the Defence Ministry.

Now cut to the civilian establishment.

Unaware of its fax goof-up, the IMD, as per routine, sent another fax to the Disaster Control Room in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) at 9.14 am.

Eight minutes later, Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedis private secretary was also brought into the loop.

At 10.30, the director of the Control Room T. Swami informed Cabinet Secretariat officials.

By then the tsunami had hit the Chennai coastline and another earthquake measuring 7.3 struck 60 miles west of Indira Point at 9.53 am.

What happened between 6.29 am and 8.56 am in the IMD is also telling: it shows how the countrys premier met agency works in isolation during an unprecedented emergency.

So even as IMD stations in Chennai, Vishakhapatnam and Kolkata began started receiving after-shock signals within minutes of the main earthquake, and while the rest of the world had already issued the exact epicentre of the earthquakeand the Pacific warning system had sounded a tidal wave alertthe IMD was doing its own calculations to find out the magnitude and epicentre of the earthquake.

Not helping the IMD was the fact that the Andaman station in Port Blair runs on an old, analog system rather than a digital one. In other words, in the event of a large earthquake and frequent after-shocks, what it registered was a clipped seismograph a blank sheet of paper instead of zig-zag lines.

This is exactly what happened.

For computing the exact epicentre, we need data from three stations in three directions. With Andamans out of operations, it took us longer than expected, explained the duty officer.

By then, the after-shocks had begun at Andamans. The first one was at 7:19 am of magnitude 5.9 on the richter scale. It is not clear whether that was enough to sound the warning bells.

Tsunamis are never recorded in Indian history, so it did not occur to us, said R S Dattatrayam, director seismology at IMD, who arrived after 8.30 am to the station after being informed. I dont recall the exact sequence of events."

Just read where the executive director for GreenPeace and director Tony Juniper of the Friends of the Earth have called on people to head the warning of this tsunami as further evidence of the hazards of global warming and more similar weather related disasters.

Huh! What planet did these idiots come from? Just more reasons for intelligent people to question the motives of these extremist environmental organizations when their leaders are this stupid. This has got to go down as the most moronic statements I have seen to date from these organizations. Frontal lobotomies must be part of the initiation into environmental organization management.

This tsunami is not related to global warming in any way and it is unlikely that any tsunami would have such a link. The plate tectonics responsible for the earthquake that spawned this tsunami can, over long periods of time, change climate, but the reverse is patently false.

Any idiot can take a quote out of context and attempt to convince us it means something it was never intended to mean. That "news" link certainly has their fair share of idiots on their staff. This is the source of their outrageous opinion piece.

""2004: The year of living dangerously
This year has seen a succession of ferocious natural disasters, destroying cities and killing tens of thousands of people. Michael McCarthy reports on a trend that is terrifying the insurance industry
27 December 2004

12,300 killed as tsunami sweeps across Asia

Simon Calder: Disaster reveals the reality of these seductive idyllsindependent portfolio

Today's stories in full

The deadly sea surges that swept across southern Asia yesterday, destroying whole communities across at least eight countries, were triggered by the strongest earthquake the world has witnessed for 40 years.

The quake which swelled under the sea near Aceh in north Indonesia created a wall of water that sped across thousands of miles to leave whole towns in tatters and a ghastly death toll.

But the latest "freak" disaster features among a number of ferocious natural disasters that the world has seen this year. It was exactly a year ago, on Boxing Day last year, that the ancient city of Bam in Iran was destroyed by a powerful earthquake that killed more than 43,000 people, injured 20,000 and left 60,000 destitute.

And 2004 has been the year of the hundred billion dollar damage bill - when the weather broke all records.

Across the planet, the violence of the world's wind and rain caused unprecedented economic damage, new figures reveal - adding to fears that the disastrous consequences of climate change are beginning to take effect.

Losses caused by natural disasters, most of them climate-related and headed by hurricanes in America and typhoons in Japan, leapt for the first time to more than $100bn (£52bn), according to preliminary estimates from the Zurich-based reinsurance giant Swiss Re. The remarkable sum will intensify the global warming debate, as more extreme weather events, including tropical storms of greater intensity, are among the predicted consequences of climate change. The astonishing storms of the past year are consistent with this, although scientists say it is not yet possible to link them to global warming directly.

However, leading environmentalists said they should be very much taken as a warning. "Here again are yet more events in the real world that are consistent with climate change predictions based on the most up-to-date scientific models," said Tony Juniper, the director of Friends of the Earth. "Only last year, the members of the United Nations Environment Programme's finance initiative were estimating that insured losses due to natural disasters would soon approach $150bn per decade.

"These figures say we are well on the way to reaching that in just one year. The insurance industry must now add its voice to those calling for urgent action to limit the danger posed by rapid climate change."

Stephen Tindale, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "No one can ignore the relentless increase in extreme weather events and so-called natural disasters, which in reality are no more natural than a plastic Christmas tree.""

Note that Juniper & Tindale are talking about extreme weather events in general & not the tsunami.

I think he's form the planet Juniper Monte!
It's a stretch but he may be implying that the rising sea level due to GW makes these "events" even worse? (from original quote). Besides, everybody knows that the biggest threat from GW is that it causes Fox newz to get a bit steamed ;o)

No one can ignore the relentless increase in extreme weather events and so-called natural disasters, which in reality are no more natural than a plastic Christmas tree."

Just how to you interpret this statement any differently than that the author of the statement considered the "so-called natural disasters" as unnatural. To me, unnatural means man-made or influenced by man's actions. The author's use of the term "no more natural than a man-made Christmas Tree" to describe the events indicates t me that he believes they were promulgated by the actions of man, and in this case, in the context of the Independent article, man's impact on global warming. I construe that to mean he felt the tsunami mentioned in the article had at least some unnatural causes.

The guy appears to be nothing more than a glorified lobbyist who apparently has little or no understanding of the issue he is promoting, a position typical of many lobbyists, just an understanding that he gets paid to promote a certain position at all expense. Damn the facts and science, full speed ahead.

Thank you Althea. You saved me from doing what you did: Search out the original quotes in the Fox article. It is as I suspected: Out of context, exaggerated, and then turned into a reinforcement against environmentalism. They were preaching to their choir. So much for No Spin. I particularly liked at the end of his piece he did a redirect with the malaria / DDT bit. Put a little frosting on his enviro-hate cake. DDT was not banned world wide. It was banned in the US with some exceptions for health emergencies. Other nations followed our example. But for many nations it was an issue of insect resistance to the pesticide, and microbial resistance to antimalarial drugs. It was economics. There came a point of diminishing returns for their investment in eradication programs where it became pointless to fund projects that no longer worked. And no other pesticide has proven as successful. It was a wonderful molecule in some respects. But people overused it, natural selection came into play, and resistant mosquitoes prevailed. End of story.

Thank you Althea and Bill for treading the same ground that I was about to tread. There is way to much crap put out by both extremes to make their often weak cases. Hate mentality gaining currency, folks. Using quoted statements or phrases out of context is the simplest and most misleading of the methods. Works in politics as long as we the voters accept sloganeering and sound bites as debate of issues.

Agreed Bill & Marshall. The contortionist journalism practiced by Fox is intended to serve as fuel for extremist agendas.

At least two geophyicists believe there is a relationship between global warming and earthquakes in the Arctic region.

I have to question the logic about glaciers holding down the number and frequency of earthquakes at the poles. While the glaciers are massive and heavy, I suspect their total mass is small when compared to the crustal plates they ride on where the earthquakes originate. There are well documented undersea earthquakes. I would suspect the pressures from several thousand feet of water would be similar to crustal pressures created by glaciers. Yet undersea earthqaukes occur regularly. Is it the shift of water weight from glacier to open water causing earthquakes? Don't know. Is it an increase in geological activity that coincides with glacial reduction? Don't know. Valid hypothesis? Yes. Fact? I'm not convinced.

****

Returning to Fox News for a moment, do you know what movie continuity is? That's where all the visual elements of the scenes remain consistant. A character's tie stays the same color. Their hair is combed the same. The car does or does not have hubcaps. If a movie fully engages me, I don't notice these things. But if it fails to hold all of my attention and leaves some brain time slices open to process subliminal items, they may actually rise in my conciousness and obscure the movie. I've found myself doing this with talk radio quite a bit. I'll hear a news story and unknowingly park it in memory. Then I'll hear an analysis of the news from Franken, O'Rielly, Limbaugh, et al, and immediately sieze on an "inaccuracy". If only my memory had enough capacity and accuracy. It is fascinating but a little disturbing to realize the facts get massaged by the teller depending on their reaction to the news.

There are still tremors associated with deglaciation of North America, particularly along an axis from Long Island through the Ohio Valley. Icecaps several miles deep had depressed the underlying rock formation so that after the ice melted away and back, the land began and long period of rebound marked by episodes of earth tremors.

While it is true that glacial rebound produces tremors, they are generally minor in magnitude with minimal displacement. The tremors are more often the result of fracturing that occurs as the compressive stress is relieved from the rock. Since most of this excess stress was applied to the rock in the vertical direction, due to the weight of the overlying ice, the fractures are mostly horizontal. They are also usually very shallow because any amount of burial creates a sufficient vertical compressive stress component to prevent the tensile rock failure mode characteristic of these fractures.

This type of seismic activity is much different than the type produced by the elevated horizontal stresses related to tectonic plate movements at subduction trenches or seafloor spreading ridges, continental rift zones, thrust faults, and strike-slip fault zones.

It is fascinating but a little disturbing to realize the facts get massaged by the teller depending on their reaction to the news.

Good point, Bill. Even a word for word replay by another party can change the focus through emphasis on certain words or phrases....with also attendant garnishing. And we all have heard of spin.

Of course (otherwise known as DUH, Dude) I haven't read in detail the statements on geoseismic matters offered by those climatologists (and do-gooding enviros that might have been quoted.) Sinilar incidence of rebound are reported from Scandinavia which is another low-active seismic region. Want to bet that the cited quotes were part of a much more meaningful context even from climatologists?

To get back on topic...as far as early warning systems for such disasters go......

"The Thai Government was officially warned seven years ago that tsunamis stemming from an earthquake on the seabed could hit southwest Thailand, but the warning was ignored for fear of frightening off tourists and investors."

At least he was vindicated in his lifetime. Too many who issue warning calls and are subsequently vilified never get the recognition they deserve until after they're gone. Of course, having the disaster occur before your death helps...

Ryan

Sorry, Shaxhome, but this sort of news is a little too breathless. I can predict that a major earthquake will hit California in the next 7 years. Odds are pretty good. I might even predict no major tsunami of local origin with some confidence because our major San Andreas fault is a strike-slip zone. The tectonic plates are slipping past one another as the Pacific plate slides under the North American plate. We do have thousands of other smaller fault lines, some of which are overthrust faults (e.g. Northridge) similar to the megathrust fault off the Indonesian coast but much smaller.

If the warning had been specific (as the Thais seem to be claiming their geologists were), I might accept this FOX News report. :)

Geologists became very concerned about growing seismic activity in that part of the Indonesian archipelago, including a growing bulge in the center of the Krakatoa caldera. An island now exists there. The archipelago is arranged along a major thrust-faulting zone where several continental plates are interacting. There've been a couple of science papers on these matters over the past couple of years. Wish I had paid more attention and book marked them.

Where's Monte?

(giggleing) Like our government never missed opportunities to act on issues of public health and safety.

*** moment of wry sarcasm

Well, at least when the Republicans are done destroying the school system so no one but the upper crust (my sly way of staying on topic) can afford an education, and when they are done shipping all the jobs overseas so we have a lower class similar to SE Asian nations, then we can have natural disasters that kill as many folks in cardboard homes as they do over there. We will finally be able to compete with them on an equal footing in something. Finally.

Of course, there is an overthrust fault in the vicinity of Santa Cruz Island...

Ryan

Sorry for posting that, Marshall...I'll take a deep breath and duck out now....am very glad that you are in control of California's early warning system and are so definite that no harm will befall you and yours...

Science (and guesswork) are wonderful things....and comparable, IMHO...

Shaaaaaax, come baaaaack! I'm sooorrry, so sorry for being an insensitive a$$.

The archipelago is arranged along a major thrust-faulting zone where several continental plates are interacting.

Volcanos like Krakatoa, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, Mt. Shasta, etc., are the result of the melting of low density rocks that are carried deep into the Earth at subduction zones. As such, they are normally located some distance inland, or equivalent on the overriding landmass, from the subduction zone itself. The low density minerals are carbonates, shales, and sands that have been deposited on the thin basaltic basement rock of the deep seafloor. As the subducting plate dives under the overriding plate, the pressure and temperature these low density mineral are exposed to increases. At some depth, they melt and decompose to form the magma that forms the volcanos. Since the density of this magma is considerably lower than the surrounding rock which is primarily basalt and olivine, they begin to move upward due to bouyancy effects.

Considerable amounts of water vapor, sulfur gases, carbon dioxide are also trapped in the magma as a result of the thermal decomposition of the sedimentary rocks at depth. As the magma rises, these gases, highly pressurized after forming at great depths, begin to expand and create additional forces to break through the overlying crustal rocks. It is the sudden release of these same dissolved gases at surface that produces the violent explosive eruptions such as occurred at Mt. St Helens and Krakatoa.

As this magma forces its way up through the crust, seismic events occur due to the fracturing and failure of the overlying rock. However, these are generally of low magnitude and shallow. This is significantly different then the very deep seated earthquakes and potentially high magnitude earthquakes resulting from slippage between the subducting and overriding plate which may occur several miles underground.

From that perspective, earthquake events associated with these type volcanos probably have quite poor correlation with tsunami events except when the volcano is located in the ocean as is the case with Krakotoa. Even in the case of Krakotoa, it was not the eruption of the volcano or seismic activity that directly caused the tsunami, but the collapse of the volcano to form a huge caldera.

Marshall...I do apologise for my petulance, but I was really most exasperated by your easy dismissal of that story. Which part don't you believe? Was it purely because of its source?

Don't you think that if that early warning system and alarm bells were in place, that at least SOME lives might have been saved? And likewise for keeping resort buildings further from the coastline? And isn't the fact that :

"But last Thursday, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra put Mr Samith in charge of establishing an advanced seismic and tsunami warning system for the whole nation. The brief would also take in other calamities such as storms and floods. He was named a vice-minister reporting directly to Mr Thaksin."

some vindication for his beliefs and efforts?

I do have a personal interest in this matter. My son had been on a surfing holiday in Phuket 3 days before the tsunami struck and I spent a harrowing 24 hours before he contacted me to let me know that he had by that time moved on into the high mountain country....

Regards,

Shax

Oh Shax, what a relief for you that he was safe afterall.

I wasn't deriding the scientists; I was reacting to the blame-gaming going on. Or so it seemed to me. Nearly every major earthquake we've had around here over the past 34 years came as a surprise in that many were associated with unknown or minor fault structures (outside those along the San Andres fault zone.) Several fairly reputable geophysicists or geologists have warned of impending major tremors along monitored faults. We are for the most part still waiting for the high-probability earthquakes.

I go into this detail because California has been extensively studied and monitored for a long time, and we can't predict with any precision when or where a quake will strike; much less predict tsunamis. At least we are part of a buoy system and so will have some warning of approaching tsunamis.

Thailand the other countries around and in the Indian Ocean have a big and costly job to install, staff, and manage a warning system.

Monte, thanks for the detail. I remember reading in college that when Krakatoa blew there was both an immediate tsunami and a later one associated with the caldera collapse, inflow of ocean waters and violent blowback, so to speak.

Tsunami-Generating Earthquake Near U.S. Possibly Imminent
By Robin Lloyd
Special to LiveScience
posted: 03 January 2005
07:21 pm ET
There are only two places in the United States where colliding tectonic plates could cause a major tsunami, and new studies show a new earthquake in at least one of these locations could be imminent.

The Cascadia subduction zone, a 680-mile fault that runs 50 miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest -- from Cape Mendocino in California to Vancouver Island in southern British Columbia -- has experienced a cluster of four massive earthquakes during the past 1,600 years. Scientists are trying to figure out if it is about to undergo a massive shift one more time before entering a quiescent period.

"People need to know it could happen," said U.S. Geological Survey geologist Brian Atwater.

The historical record for this zone, which has the longest recorded data about its earthquakes of any major fault in the world, shows that earthquakes occur in clusters of up to five events, with an average time interval of 300 years between quakes, said Chris Goldfinger, a marine geologist at Oregon State University. Goldfinger and other scientists have been studying this subduction zone for many years.

At the Cascadia subduction zone, an oceanic tectonic plate called the Juan de Fuca is pulled and driven (subducted) beneath the continental North American plate, setting up conditions for undersea "megathrust" earthquakes

The two most recent quakes on this fault occurred in the year 1700 (a magnitude 9 event) and approximately the year 1500. It has now been 305 years since the last event. So is the Cascadia subduction zone finished for now or on the brink of event number five?

"We know quite a bit about the periodicity of this fault zone and what to expect," he said. "But the key point we dont know is whether the current cluster of earthquake activity is over yet, or does it have another event left in it."

At the Cascadia subduction zone, an oceanic tectonic plate called the Juan de Fuca is pulled and driven (subducted) beneath the continental North American plate, setting up conditions for undersea "megathrust" earthquakes.

The Cascadia subduction zone occurs where the relatively thin Juan de Fuca plate moves eastward and under the westward-moving North American Plate. When that collision results in a rupture, massive earthquakes occur. The other active subduction zone capable of producing a major earthquake-tsunami sequence is in Alaska, the site of a giant earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 1964.

Scientists say a rupture along the Cascadia fault would cause the sea floor to bounce 20 feet or more, setting off powerful ocean waves relatively close to shore. The first waves could hit coastal communities in 30 minutes or less -- too rapidly for the current warning systems to save lives.
A tsunami along the Atlantic Coast is considered extremely unlikely.

Tsunamis are the result of sudden rises or falls in a section of the earths crust under or near the ocean, usually caused by earthquakes, volcanic activity or landslides. Earthquakes at subduction zones (rather than at other types of faults such as thrust faults) produce the highest energy tsunamis, especially when they occur in deep water. The seismic activity displaces sea water, creating a rise or fall in the level of the ocean above. This rise or fall in sea level initiates the formation of a tsunami wave. The waves height increases in shallower water.

Geologists can track earthquakes back in time by radiocarbon dating deposits of sand called turbidites, which come from undersea landslides.

Major studies on the Cascadia fault zone have identified 19 to 21 major earthquake events during the past 10,000 years. During at least 17 of these events, the entire fault zone probably ruptured at once, causing an earthquake around magnitude 9 and major tsunamis, such as those which savaged East Asia last week.

The Asian event happened where the India plate was subducted beneath the Burma microplate. It ruptured, for the first time since 1833, along a 600-mile front just about the same length as the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

The Asian event may provide a shocking demonstration of the geologic future of the Pacific Northwest, Goldfinger said. For hundreds of years, subduction zone plates remain locked in place, releasing little tension. Every few centuries, in a few minutes of violence, forces are released as the upper plate moves seaward, producing a massive tsunami following earthquake shaking.

"In the case of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, you could have an area of ocean floor thats 50 miles wide and 500 to 600 miles long suddenly snap back, causing a huge tsunami," Goldfinger said. "At the same time, we could expect some parts of the upper, or North American, plate to sink one to two meters. These are massive tectonic events. Subduction zones produce the most powerful earthquakes and tsunamis in the world."

The question is not whether, but when the Cascadia Subduction Zone will break again.

"One possibility is that we could be done with this cluster and looking at a period of many hundreds of years before the next earthquake," Goldfinger said. "The other distinct possibility is we could still be in a cluster of events. If thats the case, the average time interval between earthquakes within a cluster is already up. We would be due just about any day."

The Associated Press contributed to this report

VGKG, where is the other place in the US?

Ha, I think the author is teasing us Marshall. Best guesses are off the Alaskan coast or the mid-Atlantic? That peskie old volcano in the Canary Islands hangs over our heads here in the east. Here's the world map of plates and associated volcanoes.

Trying to google up some info on past Atlantic tidal waves, have to sort thru a lot to get some tidbits like this one below :

"Scientists in Great Britain and the United States have recently released a report that indicates that one of the volcanoes in the Canary Islands in the eastern North Atlantic is particularly unstable, and will, someday, set forth a trans-atlantic tidal wave of mammoth proportions. And although they are cautious to state that there is no immediate danger, the Geological Society of London has already told the government that contingency plans should be developed.

The Canary Islands are a chain of small islands just offshore from Morocco in West Africa. One of the smaller islands, La Palma, is home to the Cumbre Vieja volcano. Of itself, this is not unusual. Many volcanoes, some highly active, exist throughout the globe.

La Palma, however, is one of the steepest islands in the world and is therefore potentially unstable. In addition, Cumbre Vieja is the most active volcano in the Canary Islands, having erupted most recently in 1971. Scientists are concerned that eventually, a major eruption of Cumbre Vieja will result in the collapse of the western face of the island - sending a mountain of earth to the ocean floor and setting forth a tidal wave, or, as they are also called in the Pacific Ocean, a tsunami.

According to modelling results, the tidal wave generated by this eruption would propagate outward from the centre of the eruption at the speed of a jet aircraft - reaching the coast of Africa and Europe within minutes, and impacting Newfoundland in about eight hours. Some model runs indicate that a particularly strong eruption would generate a wave which, even after traversing the Atlantic, would be 25 metres in height upon reaching our coasts.

Studies of this nature are invariably welcomed with a certain degree of caution, perhaps even cynicism. A 25 metre wave? From the other side of the Atlantic? Not likely!

On November 1, 1755, an underwater earthquake in the eastern Atlantic set forth a tidal wave which killed 60,000 people in Lisbon, Portugal. Thousands more were drowned in other areas of Europe and in Africa, in one of the most significant earthquake events in European history.

Tidal waves, or tsunamis, in the Pacific Ocean are relatively common and it is well known that a tsunami generated from an earthquake in a specific area may travel thousands of miles. It is not surprising, then, that the effects of the Lisbon earthquake were felt in Newfoundland. Rev. Philip Tocque, an Anglican minister born in Carbonear, wrote, in his book Wandering Thoughts, about the tidal wave when in hit Bonavista.

"The sea retired and left the bed of the harbour dry for the space of ten minutes, when it again flowed in and rose to an unusual height, overflowing several meadows for about the same space of time as it had retired...the waters on each side of the cape were greatly agitated".

Atlantic Canada has also evidenced a tidal wave within the preceding century. On November 18, 1929, an underwater earthquake precipitated a "landslide" along the Laurentian Continental Slope in waters south of Newfoundland, generating a tsunami which swept along the south coast of the island. The Burin Peninsula Tidal Wave swept away homes, wharves, flakes and everything else in its path. Twenty eight lives were lost in what has been described as Canada's most tragic earthquake.

P. J. Antle was nineteen years old at the time and described the first wave as a "great black monster...the noise of smashing timber, the roar of the sea, the movement of thousands of tons of rocks, the screams of horrified people, all blended into one indescribable crescendo. All the demons in Hell were let loose."

Of course, Pacific Ocean tsunamis are far more frequent than Atlantic Ocean events, and far more devastating. One of the most famous tsunamis resulted after Krakatoa blew itself to pieces in 1883 - a six metre wave killed 36,000 people. Thousands more have been killed in earlier times or during the past century. Most recently, a tsunami killed 2,000 people in Papua New Guinea in 1998.

Although attention throughout history has focussed mostly on Pacific Ocean events, it is clear that our own waters are not without their own dangers. An increased scientific attention to the potential impacts of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and resultant tsunamis in the North Atlantic is therefore welcome news.

Copyright, November 1, 2001.

Bruce Whiffen.

I'm about 875 ft. above sea level. I'm not too concerned about a tsunami here, but when Southern California has her "big one", I don't want to be around, period. That one is prophised to take LA under.

Wayne, I have big doubts about LA/CA falling into the ocean (well, I doubt all prophecies anyways). As you surely know, what you need to worry about (besides Yellowstone blowing up) is your more local threat - The New Madrid Fault. Don't let that 1895 6.8 fool ya, the site below recaps the 1812 8+ magnitudes, 3 of them...

Having lived in California for several years, I am much more aware of earthquakes than I had been living in other parts of the country and world. I actually felt one here in November 1999 which was a 5+ magnitude earthquake that struck outside of Needles, CA. It actually cracked some of the plaster in pools on the west side of town here.

I remember researching the huge quakes of 1811-1812 and seemed to recall that a lot of the Mississippi River was on a fault line. It is not as active as the fault lines which line the Pacific basin. Because of the increased number of earthquakes, homes on the West Coast are built to withstand most earthquakes; unfortunately, that is not true in other parts of the country. Many of the older homes in the midwest are brick and any rockin and rollin, the homes will collapse on each other. Unless building codes are updated and older buildings are retrofitted, I would fear that there would be a large number of casualties. Hopefully none of us see the day when that happens.

I am not worried about a tsunami here either. I am at 1500' above sea level protected by mountains in California, New Mexico, Colorado, Mexico, as well as the surrounding mountains. If a tsunami makes it here, something much more worse has gone on, and the tsunami is the least of mine or anyone else's worries.

Marshall, Ryan--any thoughts considering both of you are in California?

ADR,

I'm on a coastal plain about 15 miles inland, at an altitude of 30-50 feet. While tsunami have exceeded those heights, I've never heard of one making it so far inland.

Ryan

I am only a few miles from the ocean but am protected by an intervening higher mesa and by living a couple hundred of feet above sea level.

If you study a population distribution maps of the world, you might have noticed that half the population occupies the coastal edges of oceans and inland seas. Those coastlines affected by the latest tsunami basically means the ravaging of about a half million or more people through the direct and indirect effects of the tsunami and aftermath.

You forgot to add Marshall, that the same people live in these areas are also prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity. This includes the Mediterranean basin, almost all of the Pacific Rim, the Northern Atlantic and the Carribbean. In fact, there are very few places that people live which aren't prone to such problems (well maybe here in Arizona).

The point I was trying to make earlier about a huge tsunami was the source of the energy would have to come from a meteorite or a supervolcano blowing its top. Otherwise, most of us would be able to get to safety if we received some type of advanced warning.

Returning to the Fox link for a moment, Grist reports:

**When pressed to name an environmentalist who had claimed a causal link between global warming and the South Asian tsunami, Michaels referenced comments made by Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth U.K., and Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace U.K., in a Dec. 29 article about the tsunami and other natural disasters of 2004 in the British newspaper The Independent (reprinted in Pretoria News). But, while both environmental leaders were quoted remarking on an increase in natural disasters potentially related to global warming last year, neither mentioned the tsunami. In fact, in a press release put out today, the two groups say their leaders' quotes were given before the tsunami even hit.**

Grist sites others of similar ilk, CATO & Competitive Enterprise Institute who are on the same well worn path as Fox.