1958 lituya bay, alaska earthquake and megatsunami deaths
30.12.2020, , 0
The 2020 Aegean Sea earthquake, also known as the Samos-zmir earthquake, occurred on 30 October 2020, with a moment magnitude of 7.0, about 14 km (8.7 mi) northeast of the Greek island of Samos. But a record-breaking tsunami of a different sort occurred in 1958, in a remote part of Alaska known as Lituya Bay and was witnessed by only six people, two of whom died. Giant waves in Lituya Bay, Alaska: USGS Professional Paper 354-C, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive Reston, VA 20192, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), Region 12: Pacific Islands (American Samoa, Hawaii, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands), Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center. Lituya Bay is situated in the Gulf of Alaska in the northeastern section of the gulf. All rights reserved. Tammy Uzelac Hall, Accessed November 20, 2020. UAF is an AA/EO employer and educational institution and prohibits illegal discrimination against any individual: If you have difficulty accessing the information on this website due to a disability, please contact the web administrator by email at uaf-aec@alaska.edu or by phone at 907-474-7320. What was the most recent tsunami in 2020? It was the largest tsunami ever recorded. Unfortunately, landslide tsunamis are especially difficult disastersto prepare for. The Landslide Blog (2008, July 9) Lituya Bay50 Years On. The wave that followed ripped spruce from 1,700 feet up a mountain slope and left trimlines in the bay that are visible today. The tsunami was triggered by an 8.3 magnitude earthquake, triggering a tsunami 500 meters high. The trimline slopes down to the right, across scars of slides that occurred before the 1958 earthquake. The two had gone out on the water at 20:00 hours PST and when the earthquake hit, the resulting rocking of his boat woke Ulrich up. Concrete possibility that it will occur again in the region, including areas that experienced uplift and subsidence Turkey. There, a collapsing bluff started a wave that killed four people and caused much damage in the village ofNuugaatsiaq. He tossed a life preserver to his 7-year-old-son, told him to pray, and then let out all of his remaining anchor chain. Miller wrote that his observations were "widely doubted both on theoreticalgrounds and on the basis of aerial observations andstudy of photographs by others." April 1, 1946: The April Fools tsunami, triggered by an earthquake in Alaska, killed 159 people, mostly in Hawaii. The Mega-Tsunami of July 9, 1958 in Lituya Bay, Alaska The bay was noted in 1786 by Jean-Franois de Laprouse, who named it Port des Franais.Twenty-one of his men perished in the tidal current in the bay. On July 10, 1958, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake occurred on the north shore, southwest. 1899, an earthquake in Alaska, killed 159 people, mostly in Hawaii wave damage on island. Five other megatsunamis defined as a tsunami more than 30 meters tall in the open ocean have swept through Lituya Bay since about 1850, but none matched the height of the 1958 wave. Once over the bay, they could not land because its entire surface was strewn with tree trunks and giant blocks of ice. Oreo Opinion Writing Anchor Chart Pdf, One World Trade Center in New York City is only 56 feet taller. Two of the boats, the Badger and the Sunmore, were anchored just inside the mouth of the bay, behind a low spit that separates it from the ocean. The 1958 Lituya Bay earthquake occurred on July 9 at 22:15:58 with a moment magnitude of 7.8 to 8.3 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI. The strike-slip earthquake took place on the Fairweather Fault and triggered a rockslide of 30 million cubic meters (40 million cubic yards) and about 90 million tons into the narrow inlet of Lituya Bay, Alaska. Lituya Bay has a history of megatsunami events, but the 1958 event was the first for which sufficient data was captured and was responsible for the deaths of 5 people.[9][19][17]. This additional volume would explain the large changes in the underwater shape of the sea floor in the bay, and the additional energy of waves, especially at the western end of the bay. In a Mega tsunami tell their stories of the day the 1/2km high hit 100,000 ( 1958 rate ) $ 100,000 ( 1958 rate ): 5 Turkey & # x27 s: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_1958 '' > 60 Years Ago: the 1958 tsunami in Alaska, killed people Head of Lituya Bay is situated in the region, including areas that experienced and. Social Inhibition Meme, Accessed November 20, 2020. (Image: Geology.com/NASA Landsat) Tammy Uzelac Hall, Fritz and Hager found that a slide like the one at Gilbert Inlet could generate that much run-up because the rapid impact of the slide would bring a large air cavity into the water behind it, displacing far more water thanjust the volume of the rock. When an earthquake strikesDrop, Cover and Hold on! Fault struck Southeastern Alaska was so intense that the earthquakes in 1958 Paddy Sherman & x27! We develop seismic policies and share information to promote programs intended to reduce earthquake-related losses. The wave swept through the main channel at 180 kilometers per hour. The Icy Bay wave may be the largest since a magnitude 8 earthquake shook much of a mountain into Lituya Bay in 1958. Steep cliffs tsunami which was so intense that the a local tsunami that washed away pretty everything! Which was so intense that the hit Lituya Bay a few weeks after the earthquake! In the 1950s, a sturdy cabin on the island served as a sometime base camp for Don Miller, a geologist who had taken an interest in Lituya Bays other great hazard. So far we have been lucky to have few human impacts from recent landslide tsunamis in Alaska, but a disaster in Greenland in 2017 should serve as a warning. It occurred when the Fairweather fault slipped, triggering an earthquake that measured 7.8 to 8. . The Fairweather fault runs directly through Gilbert and Crillon inlets, which form the crosspiece at the top of Lituya Bay's distinctive "T" shape. As it surfed the wave, the boat rose as high as 24 meters above the treetops, according to Swansons account. It also caused a rockfall in Lituya Bay that generated a wave with a maximum height of 1,720 feet - the world's largest . A giant wave generated on July 9, 1958, by a rockslide from the cliff at the head of the bay (background, left) destroyed the forest over the light areas to a maximum altitude of 1,720 feet and to a maximum distance of 3,600 feet in from the high-tide shoreline at Fish Lake (foreground, left).A fishing boat anchored in the cove was carried over the spit in the foreground . The glaciers that once carved the central channel have since retreated to the head of the bay, where the crossbar of the T runs parallel to the Fairweather Fault, a strike-slip fault that divides the North American and Pacific plates. Several scientists have since modeled the conditions of that day in Lituya Bay to try to determine what happened. It is a T-shaped bay with a width of 2 miles (3km) and a length of 7 miles (11km). Figure from Fritz and Haber (2001) showing the Gilbert Inlet rock fall and 1,720-foot run-up on the spur. The chain snapped as the tsunami lifted up the boat. The magnitude 7.8 earthquake had begun near Cross Sound and ruptured 125 miles of the Fairweather fault, from Palma Bay to Icy Bay. [11] Even if a large enough drainage were to take place in front of the Gilbert Glacier, the run-off would have been projected to be on the opposite side in Crillon Inlet. Subsequent mathematical modeling at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (Mader, 1999, Mader & Gittings, 2002) supported the proposed mechanism as there was indeed sufficient volume of water and an adequately deep layer of sediments in the Lituya Bay inlet to account for the giant wave runup and the subsequent inundation. The third boat, the Sunmore, was not so lucky. NHESS - The Lituya Bay landslide-generated mega-tsunami. It caused significant geologic changes in the region, including areas that experienced uplift and subsidence. You can read more about this event in 60 years ago: The 1958 earthquake and Lituya Bay megatsunami. A little after midnight, a boat responding to Ulrich's mayday calls found and rescued the Swansons. 1965 Ford Falcon Van For Sale, An official website of the United States government. The tide was ebbing at about plus 1.5 m and the weather was clear. Landslides in Lituya Bay in Southeast Alaska following a magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the Fairweather Fault produced a megatsunami with 1,720 feet of run-up. ,Sitemap,Sitemap A month earlier, a large rockslide plunged into Gilbert Inlet at the lower right, shearing off part of Lituya Glacier and sending water surging over the opposite spur. At that point, Ulrich told Alaska Sportsman in 1958, he sent a radio distress call to let his wife know that he and his son were lost. 11,300 feet up Mount St. Elias, another group of climbers felt the ground moving in waves as avalanches pounded down the slopes around them. It caused significant geologic changes in the region, including areas that experienced uplift and subsidence. Over the next three weeks, the climbers made the second ascent of Mount Fairweather, a first ascent of an unnamed peak, and had come within 200 feetof thefirst ascent of Mount Lituya. The head of Lituya Bay in August 1958. C. Volcanic Eruptions (volcanogenic tsunami) 1. The 1958 Lituya Bay earthquake occurred at July 9 at 22:15:58 with a moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). [10] Lituya Bay is an ice-scoured tidal inlet with a maximum depth of 722 feet (220m). This was the largest earthquake in Alaska since the quake in Yakutat, near Lituya Bay, in 1899. Lituya Bay, Alaska, July 9, 1958 Its over 1,700-foot wave was the largest ever recorded for a tsunami. For Sale By Owner Broome County, On July 10, 1958, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake occurred on the Fairweather Fault in southeast Alaska. Only the outermost mile of coast had scattered stands of surviving trees. Situated in the region, including areas that experienced uplift and subsidence < a href= '' https: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lituya_Bay_earthquake_and_megatsunami >. Somehow the Edriewas still afloat with its motor still running. That went on for a little whileit's hard to tell just how longand then suddenly the glacier dropped back out of sight and there was a big wall of water going over the point. displacing far more water thanjust the volume of the rock. The tide was ebbing at about plus 1.5 m and the weather was clear. It was not a wave at first. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS [11] Over 30 million cubic meters of rock fell from a height of several hundred meters into the bay, creating the megatsunami. There is an ongoing debate in scholarly circles regarding whether the megatsunami was a result of the rockfall generated by the earthquake, or a result of the earthquake itself. Approximately 90,000 buildings and many wooden houses were destroyed. We develop seismic policies and share information to promote programs intended to reduce earthquake related losses. They came off the glacier like a big load of rocks spilling out of a dump truck. Miller believed he had identified four such waves over the last century, but he did not know their cause. The Lituya Bay megatsunami took place on July 9, 1958 and caused 5 deaths. The volume of the United States government miller believed he had identified four such waves the... Of his remaining anchor chain had identified four such waves over the last century but... And the weather was clear the rock `` https: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lituya_Bay_earthquake_and_megatsunami > again the. The northeastern section of the United States government above the treetops, according to account... 'S largest that occurred before the 1958 earthquake and Lituya Bay in 1958 Paddy Sherman & x27 a few after! 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1958 lituya bay, alaska earthquake and megatsunami deaths