Abstract
A tsunami is a wave, or series of waves in a wave train, generated by the sudden, vertical displacement of a column of water. This displacement can be due to seismic activity, explosive volcanism, a landslide above or below water, an asteroid impact, or certain meteorological phenomena. These waves can be generated in oceans, bays, lakes, rivers, or reservoirs. The term tsunami is Japanese and means harbor (tsu) wave (nami), because such waves often develop as resonant phenomena in harbors after offshore earthquakes. Scenarios are presented illustrating the causes of tsunami. As well, the world distribution of events and resulting death tolls historically are summarized.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Y. Altinok, B. Alpar, S. Ersoy, A.C. Yalciner, Tsunami generation of the Kocaeli earthquake (August 17th 1999) in the Izmit Bay; coastal observations, bathymetry and seismic data. Turk. J. Marine Sci. 5, 131–148 (1999)
W. Alvarez, T. Rex and the Crater of Doom (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1997)
D.J. Asher, S.V.M. Clube, W.M. Napier, D.I. Steel, Coherent catastrophism. Vistas Astron. 38, 1–27 (1994)
Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Past tsunami events (2013), http://www.bom.gov.au/tsunami/history/index.shtm
R.J. Blong, Volcanic Hazards: A Sourcebook on the Effects of Eruptions (Academic Press, Sydney, 1984)
E. Bryant, Natural Hazards, 2nd edn. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005)
E. Bryant, J. Nott, Geological indicators of large tsunami in Australia. Nat. Hazards 24, 231–249 (2001)
B.H. Choi, E. Pelinovsky, K.O. Kim, J.S. Lee, Simulation of the trans-oceanic tsunami propagation due to the 1883 Krakatau volcanic eruption. Nat. Hazard Earth Syst. Sci. 3, 321–332 (2003)
D.D. Churchill, S.H. Houston, N.A. Bond, The Daytona Beach wave of 3–4 July 1992: A shallow-water gravity wave forced by a propagating squall line. Bulletin Am. Meteorol. Soc. 76, 21–32 (1995)
S. Clarke, T. Hubble, D. Airey, P. Yu, R. Boyd, J. Keene, N. Exon, J. Gardner, Submarine landslides on the upper Southeast Australian passive continental margin: Preliminary findings, in Submarine Mass Movements and their Consequences, vol. 31, ed. by Y. Yamada. Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research (Springer, Netherlands, 2012), pp. 55–66
K. Cox, Sand holds clues to quake of ‘29. The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Nov 21 (1994)
H.L. Davies, Tsunami PNG 1998—Extracts from Earth Talk (University of Papua New Guinea, Waigani, 1998)
H.L. Davies, J.M. Davies, R.C.B. Perembo, W.Y. Lus, The Aitape 1998 tsunami: Reconstructing the event from interviews and field mapping. Pure Appl. Geophys. 160, 1895–1922 (2003)
W.P. de Lange, T.R. Healy, New Zealand tsunamis 1840–1982. N. Z. J. Geol. Geophys. 29, 115–134 (1986)
Earthquake Engineering Research Institute 2011. Learning from Earthquakes: The Japan Tōhoku Tsunami of March 11, 2011. EERI Special Earthquake Report, Oakland, Nov
E.L. Geist, Native American legends of tsunamis in the Pacific Northwest (1997), http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/NAlegends.html
V.K. Gusiakov, Tsunami history–recorded, in The Sea, vol. 15, Tsunamis, ed. by A. Robinson, E. Bernard (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2008), pp. 23–53
V.K. Gusiakov, A.V. Osipova, Historical tsunami database for the Kuril-Kamchatka region, in Tsunamis in the World, ed. by S. Tinti (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1993), pp. 17–30
M. Hamer, Solitary killers. New Scientist No. 2201, Aug 28, pp. 18–19 (1999)
C.B. Harbitz, S. Glimsdal, S. Bazin, N. Zamora, F. Løvholt, H. Bungum, H. Smebye, P. Gauer, O. Kjekstad, Tsunami hazard in the Caribbean: Regional exposure derived from credible worst case scenarios. Cont. Shelf Res. 38, 1–23 (2012)
S.K. Haslett, E.A. Bryant, Historic tsunami in Britain since AD 1000: A review. Nat. Hazard Earth Syst. Sci. 8, 587–601 (2008)
S.K. Haslett, E.A. Bryant, Meteorological tsunamis in Southern Britain: An historical review. Geogr. Rev. 99, 146–163 (2009)
S.K. Haslett, H.E. Mellor, E.A. Bryant, Meteo-tsunami hazard associated with summer thunderstorms in the United Kingdom. Phys. Chem. Earth 34, 1016–1022 (2009)
T.H. Heaton, P.D. Snavely, Possible tsunami along the northwestern coast of the United States inferred from Indian traditions. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 75, 1455–1460 (1985)
J.G. Hills, C.L. Mader, Tsunami produced by the impacts of small asteroids. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 822, 381–394 (1997)
R. Howorth, Tsunami–the scourge of the Pacific. COGEOENVIRONMENT News No. 14, Commission on Geological Sciences for Environmental Planning, International Union of Geological Sciences, Jan (1999)
K. Iida, Magnitude, energy and generation of tsunamis, and catalogue of earthquakes associated with tsunamis. Int. Union Geodesy Geophys. Monogr. 24, 7–18 (1963)
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Historical tsunami database for the Pacific, 47 BC–1998 AD. Tsunami Laboratory, Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics, Siberian Division Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, 1999a, http://tsun.sscc.ru/HTDBPac1/
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. ITSU Master Plan. IOCINF-1124 Paris, p. 39 (1999b)
C.J. Jenkins, J.B. Keene, Submarine slope failures of the Southeast Australian continental slope: A thinly sedimented margin. Deep-Sea Res. 39, 121–136 (1992)
K.A. Kastens, M.B. Cita, Tsunami-induced sediment transport in the abyssal Mediterranean Sea. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 92, 845–857 (1981)
U. Kuran, A.C. Yalçiner, Crack propagations, earthquakes and tsunamis in the vicinity of Anatolia, in Tsunamis in the World, ed. by S. Tinti (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1993), pp. 159–175
J.F. Lander, P.A. Lockridge, United States tsunamis (Including United States possessions) 1690–1988. National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder, (1989)
P.A. Lockridge, Tsunamis in Peru–Chile. World Data Center A for Solid Earth Geophysics, National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder, Rpt. SE-39 (1985)
P.A. Lockridge, Historical tsunamis in the Pacific Basin, in Natural and Man-Made Hazards, ed. by M.I. El-Sabh, T.S. Murty (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1988), pp. 171–181
F. Løvholt, S. Glimsdal, C.B. Harbitz, N. Zamora, F. Nadim, P. Peduzzi, H. Dao, H. Smebye, Tsunami hazard and exposure on the global scale. Earth-Sci. Rev. 110, 58–73 (2012)
D.G. Masson, C.B. Harbitz, R.B. Wynn, G. Pedersen, F. Løvholt, Submarine landslides: Processes, triggers and hazard prediction. Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc. 364A, 2009–2039 (2006)
G. Menzies, The Lost Empire of Atlantis: History’s Greatest Mystery Revealed (William Morrow Paperbacks, Hammersmith, UK, 2012)
D.J. Miller, Giant waves in Lituya Bay, Alaska. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 354-C, pp. 51–86 (1960)
S. Monserrat, I. Vilibić, A.B. Rabinovich, Meteotsunamis: Atmospherically induced destructive ocean waves in the tsunami frequency band. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 6, 1035–1051 (2006)
M. Monzier, C. Robin, J.-P. Eissen, Kuwae (~1452 A.D.): The forgotten caldera. J. Volcanol. Geoth. Res. 59, 207–218 (1994)
D.G. Moore, Submarine slides, in Rockslides and Avalanches, 1: Natural Phenomena, ed. by B. Voight (Elsevier Scientific, Amsterdam, 1978), pp. 563–604
D. Myles, The Great Waves (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1985)
National Geophysical Data Center, (NGDC/WDS) Global Historical Tsunami Database. Boulder, Colorado (2013), http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/tsu_db.shtml
National Geophysical Data Center and World Data Center A for Solid Earth Geophysics 1989. United States tsunamis (including United States possessions) 1690–1988. United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Publication No. 41–2, Boulder, Colorado
J. Nott, The tsunami hypothesis-comparisons of the field evidence against the effects, on the Western Australian coast, of some of the most powerful storms on Earth. Mar. Geol. 208, 1–12 (2004)
G. Pararas-Carayannis, The 1960 Chilean Tsunami (1998), www.drgeorgepc.com/Tsunami1960.html
K.L. Parker, Australian Legendary Tales (Bodley Head, London, 1978)
C.W. Peck, Australian Legends (Lothian, Melbourne, 1938)
T. Pinegina, L. Bazanova, O. Braitseva, V. Gusiakov, I. Melekestsev, A. Starcheus, East Kamchatka palaeotsunami traces. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Tsunami Mitigation and Risk Assessment, Petropavlovsk–Kamchatskiy, Russia, August 21–24, 1996, http://omzg.sscc.ru/tsulab/content.html
A.B. Rabinovich, S. Monserrat, Meteorological tsunamis near the Balearic and Kuril Islands: Descriptive and statistical analysis. Nat. Hazards 13, 55–90 (1996)
B. Ranguelov, D. Gospodinov, Tsunami vulnerability modeling for the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. Water Sci. Technol. 32, 47–53 (1995)
H.F. Reid, The Lisbon earthquake of November 1, 1755. Bulletin Seismol. Soc. Am. 4, 53–80 (1914)
J. Roger, Y. Gunnell, Vulnerability of the Dover Strait to coseismic tsunami hazards: Insights from numerical modelling. Geophys. J. Int. doi:10.1111/j.1365-246X.2011.05294.x
R.G. Rothwell, M.S. Reeder, G. Anastasakis, D.A.V. Stow, J. Thomson, G. Kähler, Low sea-level stand emplacement of megaturbidites in the western and eastern Mediterranean Sea. Sediment. Geol. 135, 75–88 (2000)
K. Satake, K. Shimazaki, Y. Tsuji, K. Ueda, Time and size of a giant earthquake in Cascadia inferred from Japanese tsunami records of January 1700. Nature 379, 246–249 (1996)
A. Scheffers, Tsunami imprints on the Leeward Netherlands Antilles (Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire) and their relation to other coastal problems. Quatern. Int. 120, 163–172 (2004)
D. Tappin, T. Matsumoto, P. Watts, K. Satake, G. McMurty, M. Matsuyama, Y. Lafoy, Y. Tsuji, T. Kanamatsu, W. Lus, Y. Iwabuchi, H. Yeh, Y. Matsumotu, M. Nakamura, M. Mahoi, P. Hill, K. Crook, L. Anton, J.P. Walsh, Sediment slump likely caused 1998. Papua New Guinea Tsunami. EOS Trans. Am. Geophys. Union 80, 329, 334, 340 (1999)
D.R. Tappin, A. Sibley, K. Horsburgh, C. Daubord, D. Cox, D. Long, The english channel ‘tsunami’ of 27 June 2011: A probable meteorological source. Weather 68, 144–152 (2013)
S. Tinti, A. Maramai, Large tsunamis and tsunami hazard from the New Italian Tsunami Catalog. Phys. Chem. Earth 24A, 151–156 (1999)
M.P. Tuttle, A. Ruffman, T. Anderson, H. Jeter, Distinguishing tsunami from storm deposits in Eastern North America: The 1929 Grand Banks Tsunami versus the 1991 Halloween Storm. Seismol. Res. Lett. 75, 117–131 (2004)
United Nations. The human toll. Office of the Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery (2006), http://www.tsunamispecialenvoy.org/country/humantoll.asp
R.D.M. Verbeek, The Krakatoa eruption. Nature 30, 10–15 (1884)
H.C. von Baeyer, Catch the wave. The Sciences 29, 10–13 (1999)
M. Whelan, The night the sea smashed Lord’s Cove. Can. Geogr. 70–73 (1994)
R.L. Wiegel, Oceanographical Engineering (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1964), pp. 95–108
M. Woolhouse, Massive waves a mystery at Maine Harbor. The Boston Globe, Nov 4 (2008)
A. Zaitsev, A. Kurkin, E. Pelinovsky, Historical tsunamis of the Caspian Sea and their modelling. Izvestia, Russ. Acad. Eng. Sci., Series: Appl. Math. Mech. 9, 121–134 (2004)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bryant, E. (2014). Introduction. In: Tsunami. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06133-7_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06133-7_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-06132-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-06133-7
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)