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Tsunamis are nothing more than extremely long waves. But, what exactly is a wave? Waves that travel over oceans are similar to sound waves, radio waves, and even “the wave” at a stadium. A wave is started by an external source, such as putting a rock into a pond or waves blowing over the sea. When it comes to tsunamis, the forces at play are tremendous, and the consequences can be equally so. Let’s understand what is a tsunami.
What is a tsunami?
A tsunami is a sequence of extraordinarily long waves created by a huge and sudden shift in the ocean floor, which is usually caused by an earthquake beneath or near the ocean floor. This force generates waves that travel everywhere away from their source, spanning entire ocean basins in the process. Tsunamis travel through the entire water column, from the ocean floor to the ocean surface.
Understanding the Waves of Tsunami
The first wave may not be the most powerful; instead, the second, third, fourth, and even later waves are frequently the most powerful. After floods inland, it retreats to the sea, often as far as the eye can see, exposing the seafloor. Within minutes, the following wave crashes ashore, bringing with it a slew of floating debris that had been swept away by previous waves. When tsunamis demolish entire rivers or other canal channels, they create extremely robust water currents that may easily break ship anchors, and bores can form that travel far inland.
What are the causes of tsunamis?
After understanding what is a tsunami, let’s discuss the causes of tsunamis:
Earthquakes
Movements along fault zones connected with plate boundaries might cause it. A plate boundary is an area where two plates collide, and the type of boundary is determined by how one plate travels relative to the other:
- spreading, which involves two plates moving away from one another;
- subduction, in which two plates collide and one slides beneath the other;
- a transformation in which two plates move past each other horizontally.
The majority of large earthquakes happen in subduction zones.
Landslides
A landslide is one of the major causes of tsunamis that may form along the coast and can dump massive amounts of water into the sea, causing the water to churn and perhaps causing a tsunami. Underwater landslides can generate tsunamis when the loosened material moves violently, pushing the water in front of it.
Volcanic Eruption
Violent volcanic eruptions are impulsive disturbances that can displace a large volume of water and cause extremely devastating tsunami waves in the immediate source area, despite their rarity. According to this mechanism, waves can arise as a result of abrupt water displacement caused by a volcanic phreatomagmatic explosion of the volcanic magmatic chambers.
After the eruption and fall of the volcano Krakatoa (Krakatau) in Indonesia on August 26, 1883, one of the greatest and most catastrophic tsunamis ever recorded occurred. This explosion produced 135-foot waves that wrecked coastal towns and villages throughout the Sunda Strait in both Java and Sumatra, killing 36,417 people.
Extraterrestrial Collision
Tsunamis triggered by alien collisions (such as asteroids or meteors) are extremely rare. Although no recent evidence of a tsunami caused by a meteor or asteroid has been found, experts believe that if one of these celestial objects collided with the ocean, a tremendous volume of water would be displaced, resulting in a tsunami. According to scientists, if a fairly large asteroid with a diameter of 5-6 km collided amid a huge ocean basin like the Atlantic Ocean, it would cause a tsunami that would travel to the Appalachian Mountains in the top two-thirds of the US.
Coastal cities on both sides of the Atlantic would be wiped out by such a tsunami. A tsunami would be generated if an asteroid with a diameter of 5-6 kilometres collided between the Hawaiian Islands and the West Coast of North America, washing out coastal cities on the West coasts of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and covering most of the inhabited coastal areas of the Hawaiian Islands.
Conclusion
Scientists have no way of knowing when or where the next tsunami will hit. Tsunami warning centres, on the other hand, are aware of which earthquakes are likely to result in tsunamis and may send out alerts when one is imminent. Though there are major causes of Tsunamis, they keep an eye on networks of deep-ocean and coastal sea-level observation systems that are meant to identify tsunamis, and they utilise the data to estimate coastal impacts and assist local evacuation decisions.
