The ocean floor can be thrust upwards, sideways or downward. In all cases, the movement displaces a massive amount of water that develops on the ocean surface like a small hump of less than a meter high but with a wavelength of hundreds of kilometers. This travels in all directions under its own momentum, reaching speeds of as much as kilometers per hour in the deep ocean at water depths as much as 4.
Its speed decreases to between 35 and 40 kph However, its height can grow to more than 30 meters feet if the wave is confined within a bay or natural harbor. The base of a tsunami wave can change the topography of the sea floor.
It erodes seafloor sediments and can devastate the benthic — sea bottom — ecosystems on the sea floor. These are usually invertebrates like crustaceans, worms and snails that burrow through sea floor sediments and mix them. Sometimes, huge chunks of the sea floor can ripped up.
The March Tohoku, Japan, earthquake tsunami deposited the eroded sediments in other locations as huge seafloor sand dunes. Coral reefs are natural breakwaters for a tsunami wave as it moves towards the coastline. The December Indonesian earthquake tsunami devastated coral reefs around Indian Ocean coastlines. Later investigations showed that the reefs were already dying because fishermen had exploded dynamite or poured cyanide compounds into the sea to catch fish. Four years after the tsunami, the healthy corals were regenerating.
NOAA is a global leader in the development of tsunami detection technologies and modeling tools. While significant efforts were underway to detect and model tsunamis prior to the Indian Ocean tsunami, the event spurred the development of a national tsunami research to operations plan. The U. An award-winning public science educator, David has spoken to thousands of people around the world about marine biology and conservation, and has bylines with the Washington Post, Scientific American, New Scientist, Gizmodo and more.
Please direct any questions or hate mail to WhySharksMatter gmail. Ask a Marine Biologist is a biweekly column on SportDiver. David Shiffman answers your questions about the underwater world. Topics are chosen from reader-submitted queries as well as data from common internet searches.
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