Essay - North Carolina Tsunami Risks Tsunami is a Wave Train, or...

North Carolina Tsunami Risks tsunami is a wave train, or series of waves, generated in a body ***** water by a sudden d*****turbance that vertically displaces the water column. Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions, and meteorites impacts, can generate tsunamis. It was generally believed until a few ye*****rs ago that only earthquakes and shockwave-generating disasters such as nuclear blasts and ***** could generate a tsun*****mi. However, scientists have uncovered a new culprit: under***** landslides. These can be precipitated ***** underwater topography and vary according to its shape. As deadly as they are, ***** have generally been limited to ********** of the Pacific Rim ***** are susceptible to catastrophic seismic activity. Recent discoveries about the nature of the continental shelf off the coast of Cape Hatteras have lead scientists to re-consider their likelihood.

The last major tsunami to hit the United States occurred in 1964 when an earthquake occurred in Prince William Sound in Alaska. The earthquake had a surface-wave magnitude of 8.4, somewhat higher th***** the San Francisco Earthquake of 8.25 that had leveled many neighborhoods of the city. When the ***** ***** the Aleutian Islands, it took the lives of more than 106 people and caused 84 million in damage. The effects of the earthquake were felt as far away as Hawaii, ***** ***** 16 other ***** ***** addition to those in *****. Tsunamis ravage *****lines and ***** be deadlier than hurricanes; where***** a hurricane is identified weeks in advance, a tsun*****mi can strike without warn*****g. Costal residents prepared for the possibility of an earthquake would be caught unawares in ***** event of a tsunami.

In a p*****per published in the May 2000 issue ***** the journal Geology, Neal Driscoll of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ***** colleagues Jeffrey Weissel ***** Columbia University's

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and John Goff of the University of Texas at Austin, said ***** recently discovered cracks along the edge ***** ***** continental shelf could be an early warning sign that the seafloor is unstable in these areas. ***** most recent example of a tsunami that happened due to ***** event in an ***** sea floor was in 1998 when a tsun*****mi struck the coast of Paupa New Guinea, leaving 3000 dead.(***** W. Driscoll et all, *****) Scientists ********** developed a consensus on the c*****use of the event, because of the difficulty involved in differentiating tsunamis ***** by ***** from those generated by *****s ***** the basis of teleseismic records. A particularly volatile under***** ********** c***** exacerbate the effect of a tsunami. In response, ***** have attempted to develop a methodology ***** which to determine areas where the ***** geography might be conducive to tsunami. According to an article in the May 7, 2000 edition of Geology magazine, researchers have come to a consensus on the need for ***** ***** better b*****thymetric surveys to find evidence for past land sliding, and to identify areas of seafloor ***** to future slope failure. (Synolakis, 199*****)

The paper draws specific attention to a system of en echelon cracks