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Tsunamis

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Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes or massive landslides and can inflict severe flooding in low-lying coastal areas. CMG research aims to understand the local and regional susceptibility to tsunamis, and contribute to public disaster education and preparedness.

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Items below are listed from most recently updated to least recently updated.

These are results 1 through 22 of 22 matches.

Research Project
Cascadia Seismic Hazard Studies

Description: Investigations of Earthquake and Tsunami Hazards and History in the Pacific Northwest, specifically the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
updated: 2009-07-24 pages include:

Educational Materials
Tsunami and Earthquake Research at the USGS

Description: General information on how earthquakes generate tsunamis and summaries of tsunami research.
updated: 2009-06-10 pages include:

Educational Materials
USGS Monterey Bay Science

Description: USGS Monterey Bay Science - USGS research in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and coastal watersheds of central California
updated: 2008-01-01 pages include:

Educational Materials
USGS Coastal Change Hazards

Description: USGS Coastal Change Hazards - Focuses on hurricanes, tsunamis, sea-level rise, shoreline erosion, wetland destruction, and other issues relevant to coastal zone management and disaster preparedness.
updated: 2008-01-01 pages include:

Educational Materials
Coastal and Marine Knowledge Bank

Description: An initiative to develop and present a national-scale, interdisciplinary scientific framework for marine environments, the coastal zone, and coastal watersheds
updated: 2007-11-28 pages include:

Publication
Investigation of the M6.6 Niigata-Chuetsu Oki, Japan, Earthquake of July 16, 2007

Description: The M6.6 mainshock of the Niigata Chuetsu Oki (offshore) earthquake occurred at 10:13 a.m. local time on July 16, 2007, and was followed by a sequence of aftershocks that were felt during the entire time of the reconnaissance effort. The mainshock had an estimated focal depth of 10 km and struck in the Japan Sea offshore Kariwa. Analysis of waveforms from source inversion studies indicates that the event occurred along a thrust fault with a NE trend. The fault plane is either a strike of 34 degrees with a dip of 51 degrees or a strike of 238 degrees with a dip of 41 degrees. Which of these two planes is associated with the mainshock rupture is unresolved, although attenuation relationship analysis indicates that the northwest-dipping fault is favored. The quake affected an approximately 100-km-wide area along the coastal areas of southwestern Niigata prefecture. The event triggered ground failures as far as the Unouma Hills, located in central Niigata approximately 50 km from the shore and the source area of the 2004 Niigata Chuetsu earthquake. The primary event produced tsunami run-ups that reached maximum runup heights of about 20 centimeters along the shoreline of southern Niigata Prefecture.
updated: 2007-11-15 pages include:

Publication
Circular 1187, ca.1999: Surviving A Tsunami - Lessons from Chile, Hawaii, and Japan

Description: An informative booklet about how to survive a tsunami that includes stories of people who survived tsunamis in Chile, Hawaii, and Japan. PDF format; 18 pages; published by the U.S. Geological Survey.
updated: 2007-07-02 pages include:

Publication
Seaside, Oregon, Tsunami Pilot Study GIS, USGS Data Series 236, home page

Description: USGS Digital Series 236: Seaside, Oregon Tsunami Pilot Study-Modernization of FEMA Flood Hazard Maps: GIS Data.
updated: 2007-01-04 pages include:

Publication
Open-File Report 2006-1293 - Reconnaissance Investigation of Caribbean Extreme Wave Deposits; Preliminary Observations, Interpretations, and Research Directions

Description: his report presents an overview of preliminary geological investigations and recommended future research activities in the Caribbean region pertaining to coastal hazards with an emphasis on establishing tsunami risk for U.S. territories. Fieldwork was conducted in March 2006 on the islands of Bonaire, Puerto Rico, and Guadeloupe to evaluate the stratigraphic records of extreme wave deposits as possible indicators of paleotsunami recurrence. Morphological, sedimentological, and stratigraphic evidence indicate that shore-parallel coral rubble deposits composed of coarse clasts and sand that are 10s of meters wide and several meters thick are depositional complexes that have accumulated for a few centuries or millennia, and are not entirely the result of one or a few tsunamis as previously reported. The origins of boulder fields on elevated rock platforms of the Caribbean islands are more complicated than the origins of ridge complexes because boulder fields can be constructed by either storm waves or tsunamis. What is needed now for more conclusive interpretations is a systematic sedimentological approach to deposit analysis and a set of criteria for distinguishing between coarse clast storm and tsunami deposits. Assembling more field data from other Caribbean islands, analyzing stratigraphic deposits on Puerto Rico and Bonaire, and investigating boulder field deposits resulting from a historical tsunami can accomplish this. Also needed are improved sediment transport models for coarse clasts that can be used to estimate the competence and capacity of tsunamis and storms waves and to determine whether a deposit likely was created by a tsunami or extreme storm. Improved models may also be useful for reconstructing the magnitude of extreme wave events.
updated: 2006-10-30 pages include:

Publication
Open-File Report 2006-1234 - Seaside, Oregon Tsunami Pilot Study--Modernization of FEMA Flood Hazard Maps

Description: FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) guidelines do not currently exist for conducting and incorporating tsunami hazard assessments that reflect the substantial advances in tsunami research achieved in the last two decades; this conclusion is the result of two FEMA-sponsored workshops and the associated Tsunami Focused Study. Therefore, as part of FEMA�s Map Modernization Program, a Tsunami Pilot Study was carried out in the Seaside/Gearhart, Oregon, area to develop an improved Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment (PTHA) methodology and to provide recommendations for improved tsunami hazard assessment guidelines.
updated: 2006-09-01 pages include:

Research Project
Research Projects - Tsunami Hazard Potential in the Caribbean

Description: Description of research project.
updated: 2006-04-10 pages include:

Research Project
Research Projects: Coastal and Marine Catastrophic Hazards - USGS WCMG

Description: Description of research project.
updated: 2005-07-25 pages include:

Photographs
Tsunamis and Earthquakes - 2005 Sumatra Tsunami Study - USGS WCMG

Description: USGS Western Coastal and Marine Geology was part of an international team that studied sediment deposits in Sri Lanka from the tsunami generated by the magnitude 9.0 Sumatra earthquake on December 26, 2004.
updated: 2005-05-31 pages include:

General Information
USGS WCMG - Notes from the field... Sumatra 2005

Description: News and Information about the USGS West Sumatra International Tsunami Survey Team's Field Study, March 30 - April 26, 2005. These "Notes from the field" pages were created on a daily basis as a way to report findings during the ITST's field study. The effort began just as the 28 March 2005 earthquake and tsunami occurred off Sumatra.
updated: 2005-05-02 pages include:

General Information
Tsunamis and Earthquakes - 2005 Sri Lanka Tsunami Study - USGS WCMG

Movie
Tsunamis and Earthquakes - Tsunami Generation from the 2004 Sumatra Earthquake - USGS WCMG

Description: Discussion of the tsunami generated by the magnitude 9.0 Sumatra earthquake on December 26, 2004
updated: 2005-02-01 pages include:

Publication
USGS OFR 03-190 - Diatom Data from Bradley Lake, Oregon: Downcore Analyses

Description: Displaced marine diatoms provide biostratigraphic evidence for tsunami inundation at Bradley Lake, a small freshwater lake on the south-central Oregon coast.
updated: 2003-10-29 pages include:

Publication
Fact Sheet 150-00: Helping Coastal Communities at Risk from Tsunamis�The Role of U.S. Geological Survey Research

Description: PDF file
updated: 2003-03-18 pages include:

Publication
Natural Disasters - Forecasting Hurricane Occurrence

Description: Events such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and tornadoes are natural disasters because they negatively impact society, and so they must be measured and understood in human-related terms. At the U.S. Geological Survey, we have developed a new method to examine fatality and dollar-loss data, and to make probabilistic estimates of the frequency and magnitude of future events. This information is vital to large sectors of society including disaster relief agencies and insurance companies.
updated: 2003-03-02 pages include:

Publication
USGS OFR 03-13 - Cascadia Tsunami Deposit Database

Description: The Cascadia Tsunami Deposit Database contains data on the location and sedimentological properties of tsunami deposits found along the Cascadia margin. Data have been compiled from 52 studies, documenting 59 sites from northern California to Vancouver Island, British Columbia that contain known or potential tsunami deposits. Bibliographical references are provided for all sites included in the database. Cascadia tsunami deposits are usually seen as anomalous sand layers in coastal marsh or lake sediments. The studies cited in the database use numerous criteria based on sedimentary characteristics to distinguish tsunami deposits from sand layers deposited by other processes, such as river flooding and storm surges. Several studies cited in the database contain evidence for more than one tsunami at a site. Data categories include age, thickness, layering, grainsize, and other sedimentological characteristics of Cascadia tsunami deposits. The database documents the variability observed in tsunami deposits found along the Cascadia margin.
updated: 2003-01-01 pages include:

Publication
USGS Fact Sheet 141-00: Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands

Description: Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
updated: 2001-05-02 pages include:

Research Project
1998 Earthquake Hazards Investigation in Puget Sound, Washington

Description: Seismic hazards investigation in Puget Sound to provide public information for mitigating a potential earthquake disaster in the Pacific Northwest.
updated: 2001-03-08 pages include:

These are results 1 through 22 of 22 matches.

Coastal and Marine Geology Program > Online Science Resource Locator > Tsunamis