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Coastal Landscape Evolution

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Tsunami

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Abstract

Large earthquakes on the sea floor, submarine slides, and asteroid impacts with the ocean can create tsunami waves that spread ocean-wide with profound effects on coastal landscapes. They can generate run-up heights 30 times greater than their open ocean wave height and sweep several kilometers inland. Tsunami are thus catastrophic events and can leave a permanent imprint on the landscape. There has been little appreciation in the literature that coastal landscapes may reflect tsunami processes rather than those induced by wind-generated waves and wind. This chapter shows in more detail how tsunami are different from storms, describe various models of tsunami-generated landscapes, and illustrate these models with examples from around the world.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, International University of Malaya-Wales, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Edward Bryant

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Correspondence to Edward Bryant .

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Bryant, E. (2014). Coastal Landscape Evolution. In: Tsunami. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06133-7_4

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