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NOAA Center for Tsunami Research
This graphic shows how waves generated by Japan's Honshu earthquake propagated across the Pacific Ocean, based on computer models. The different colors indicate different wave heights, as indicated by the key at lower right. Click on the graphic to watch a video showing the progress of the waves.
Seismic experts have long known that Japan’s complex undersea fault system is capable of unleashing great waves, but today's 8.9-magnitude quake was the most violent shock to hit the nation in the past century. And tsunami geologist Jody Bourgeois of the University of Washington was there to feel it for herself, on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
"The shaking didn't seem really strong, but it just kept going," she told me today during a Skype phone call. "I felt like I was seasick, which was really strange."
Bourgeois is working with other seismic experts this winter at the University of Hokkaido in Sapporo, about 300 miles north of the quake's epicenter, and she's been keeping track of Japan's recent spate of seismic activity — including a 7.2 quake that struck off the Japanese coast on Wednesday.
"I was sitting at my desk today, not really thinking we're going to get another earthquake, and then the room started to move," she said. "I didn't hear any people suggest that the 7.2 might be a foreshock. ... But now you realize that those were just the forerunners."
The quake, which ranks as the world's fifth-strongest seismic event of the past century, was centered near the southern end of an undersea subduction zone that extends from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands to the Japanese islands. Such a zone, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, is a classic generator of tsunami waves.
"Japan's very complicated because they've got several different plates coming together here," Bourgeois explained.
Specifically, the quake occurred "in the subduction zone of the Japan Trench where the Pacific Plate subducts under the Honshu island of Japan, part of the Okhotsk Plate, at a rate of about 8 centimeters per year," Jayanta Guin, senior vice president of research for AIR Worldwide, said in an advisory.
Quake history goes back centuries
Paul Caruso, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, said the quake occurred in one of the world's most seismically active regions. "That area has had nine earthquakes above magnitude 7 since 1973," he said.
An undersea quake measuring 8.2 to 9.0 in magnitude occurred in the same subduction zone off the coast of Kamchatka in 1952, generating a Pacific-wide tsunami that caused considerable damage and loss of life in Russia. Japan's deadliest quake, a 7.9 shock that killed more than 140,000 people in 1923, occurred south of today's epicenter on the main island of Honshu.
Going farther back, Bourgeois said core samples indicate that Japan's Sendai Plain was hit by a strong earthquake and tsunami back in the year 869. Some experts believe this was the strongest seismic disturbance to hit Japan in recorded history.
The same area, including Sendai's airport, was hit the hardest by today's quake. "It's been 1,200 years since they had one this large," Bourgeois said.
Other danger zones
Bourgeois said the same kind of offshore subduction zone was implicated in the magnitude-8.8 earthquake that did so much damage a year ago. A stronger subduction seaquake, pegged at magnitude 9.1, caused the tsunami that swept through the Indian Ocean in 2004, causing more than 200,000 deaths around the Pacific Rim.
Just last year, seismologists reported that the Bourgeois' home base — the Pacific Northwest — is vulnerable to the same kind of earthquake and tsunami. The 680-mile-long Cascadia fault has been dormant for 300 years, and seismologists say there's an 80 percent chance that the portion of the fault off southern Oregon and northern California could produce a megaquake in the next 50 years.
Aftershocks have been continuing in Japan, more than 12 hours after the 8.9 shock occurred, and they may continue for days or weeks longer. "We can expect a lot of aftershocks," Caltech seismologist Kate Hutton told MSNBC.
Bourgeois doesn't intend to stay holed up in her office. "I know at least one group that's going out tomorrow to the coast," she said. But she also doesn't intend to get in the way.
"We go out basically after a tsunami, when people are safe and you're not going to interfere with the local rescue efforts," Bourgeois said. "We're interested in everything — what kind of damage the tsunami did, how high the currents were. I'm interested in what kind of record the tsunami left behind, and Japan is very well set up for these kinds of surveys."
More on the Japan quake and tsunami:
- Hundreds dead after Japan's seismic shock
- Radiation risk as Japan nuke reactor heats up
- How quake prediction works (or doesn't)
- Could similar disaster hit the U.S. someday? Yes
- Tsunami waves hit Hawaii, California coast
- Interactive: How a tsunami forms
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My sincere condolences for the dead and the injured.
I saw the online pictures on msnbc of the 8m waves rushing from the ocean and it was mind boggling. I've never seen waves so high, like it came out of a movie. We live in an amazing time when technology can help us globally share nature's secrets.
Nature at its full fury. It's humbling to note that whatever advances we might have made as a species, we'll always be at nature's mercy.
i wonder if all the tech . put into there buildings held up , from the quake ,or the water?
There is another article on MSNBC about that. It was titled Builing Codes are the Early Hero, or something like that. It sounds like most of the buildings held up well. Except for the nuke plants that are overheating now.
Rakesh..........that was a brilliant statement from you regarding natures fury that has been known for over several centuries...................my God young man....even a chipmunk knows this.................
Rakesh,
I love your post! We do truly live in an amazing time. Makes you wonder if Mother Nature's always been leashing so much turmoil around the globe, or if we're simply more aware of it now. And turmoil not just of Mom Nature's doing, but our own too!
Mr. Stack, your sarcasm is not only inappropriate, it's incredibly offensive. Get a life!
we often forget, we are but a spec on this earth standing on floating plates.... Its just hard to imagine the scale of how insignificant we are when it come the natures wrath!
Must we continue with these very juvenile inane statements?
Must we put up with your nastiness?
Edward Stack Sr,
I wish you were on a dingy being drawn into that whirlpool, that Primordial Vortex.
STFU. People can make any comment they like. Sorry they don't meet your journalistic standards.
Edward Stack Sr
Must we continue with these very juvenile inane statements?<---your contempt is not needed during this tragedy. Why can't you show some compassion instead? Are you really this narrowminded?
Mr. Stack--well, no, actually. You don't have to put up with "juvenile, inane statements." You have the option to go somewhere else if you don't like people expressing their awe at something which has, in fact, stunned even the experts.
Perhaps you might find yourself a nice website with experts in tsunami research discussing the nuts and bolts of this particular quake and its aftermath. But, don't be terribly surprised to find a few people expressing some awe.
In general, though--just go somewhere else if you don't find what you want. And, while you're at it, you might want to get yourself tested for that case of high-functioning autism. Psychologists can do a lot to help people who lack the capacity to empathize with others, and you might find yourself better able to fit into society.
Since you, kind of obviously, don't have the capacity to chat pleasently with others now.
Nature has no "wrath" ! Nature is as nature does. That's all.
Eddie,
Take your blood pressure meds. When you get wound up like this, just remember we're all just little specs on a blue and green marble, hurtling through space... We're so insignificant!
Ill tell you what we don't need to continue with Mr Edward Stack Sr, thats you. Are you sure its Sr and not Jr. Since your are acting like a little kid. Why don't you take a hike and leave your inane statements for someone who gives two $#!ts. This is something very horrendous that has happened and it seems like your waiting for some comment that will leave you in amazement. I pray and will continue to pray for everyone effected by what mother nature has done to these poor victims. Hopefully soon, you will be ejected from ever commenting on this vine again, in fact I will put extra effort into making sure that happens.
You have to wonder if strong enough jolts like this can affect the plates off of Oregon. People there should be a little extra cautious for awhile and keep an eye out for any precursive signs of the sleeping giant awakening.
SBParrothead - the Pacific coast of the US and Canada/Alaska (which is, I know, the US, too) is the only area in the "Ring of Fire that hasn't had a major earthquake in the past 15 mos or so. It would appear that we are due and overdue. Best to take heed, stop burying out heads in the sand, and prepare!!
The problem is that earthquakes trigger further earthquakes. So given California's own overdue earthquake, this is quite worrisome from that perspective, even beyond all the sad destruction in Japan.
What surprised me about this quake when I first heard the news was that it continued for a long time. Most quakes occur over the span of seconds or minutes.
God be with them.....
It makes my heart bleed when I think about all the mental and physical suffering. Ignorance is bliss. Before science, we lived each day blissfully and when an earthquake came, we sacrificed a few virgins, lambs or 1st born to appease the angry god(s) and went about our business. Now we have to contemplate our insignificance and bet the odds of prediction. Ahhh... the good ole days.
My hopes and prayers go out to all the people and families affected by this disaster. The Japanese are a kind and wonderful people, I shall always remember my time spent there with fondness.
Mercy
It makes you rethink your priorities. Humanity is more vulnerable than we think.
great day for surfing.
Especially in Texas where you can surf the sand as you try to prevent tumbleweed from taking off your nose..................
Wow, Edward. I see that you are unaware that people can leave Texas, catch a plane, and go surfing off the coast of California pretty easily if they'd like. And, in any case, there's a little thing called the Gulf of Mexico which sort of has a bit of water in it.
Ladies and gentleman--Edward Stack, Sr., super genius.
Don't be silly, the Gulf doesn't have water. It has sludge, algae, oil dispersant chemicals, and Cubans.
I'm from Texas and that is cold.
To Edward, Texas is not all sand and tumbleweeds. If you were intelligent you would know that, we have just about every type of environment available. Mountains in the west, plains, desert, heavily forested areas in the east, coastline, hill country, etc. Anyone who says that has never been to Texas and would probably turn up in cowboy boots, hat and say "howdy" all the time.
I wish i could help japan is some way.
God bless japan!
It has been over thirty years since I lived in Japan, and I have been thinking more and more about returning for a visit. I even envisioned a road trip through Tohoku. Not now. I suppose a train visit return to Kansai is more likely. I'm glad the earthquake was a little ways away from the massive population centers further south on Honshu. The amount of damage in a lesser populated region is plenty staggering. The world's thoughts and prayers are with the Japanese.
Comment # 12 deleted. Pearl Harbor derail.
You're an idiot Jay Smith.
It is a terrible moment for the people of Japan; I feel very sad and helpless for them. I hope and I know efforts are being made to expedite rescue and recovery efforts over there. I pray that the people who are suffering there will suffer less.
Jay Smith; wtf does that have to do with the price of rice in China regarding this story????
Oh LORD Jesus, DO Rebuild Your HOLY Temple, LORD
Come Quickly, LORD Amen!
The Spirit and The Bride say, Come!
Do Have Mercy on All of Us Sinners, LORD Jesus Amen! <'(((><
Maybe the bride is really saying, "Praise the lord and pass the ammunition"?
I can't believe this all the distruction and lives lost oh for the sake of GOD, help those in need, my brother lives in Pahota, Hi. he lives close to a high cliff so i don't think he is in and danger, god bless all the people in Japan
God Bless Japan and anyone else affected.
.
Jay Smith, your comment is inappropriate; I can only infer from it a sense of anger or worse ... hate. What happened back then shows only what terrible things can ensue when you have a cocktail of misguided national fervor, bigotry and weaponry. We can learn from this and hopefully prevent it from ever happening again.
we Americans are the people that have a memorial to Pearl Harbor...... Is that hate?
Yeah. Oh, wait - - - it did happen again; twice. Once in Vietnam and again in Iraq. Hope God doesn't see fit to punish the invaders of those "conflicts."
I work for a Japanese company. They are very good people. They are also probably the best friends the US has in the world. I`m a former Marine so don`t give me the military hate crap! They have been a great ally for decades. Our people in that area are safe but they are very concerned about their families. Please all, keep Japan in your prayers tonight and for the next several days.
Of course they are a good ally. We effing rebuilt their country. AFTER they bombed us. Did they rebuild Pearl Harbor? No. They BOUGHT Hawaii.
to respond to me,
have you no honor, compassion nor knowledge? name one war where the victory did not do national rebuilding? only the barbarians defeated their enemies and left behind destruction and waste
i will say a pray for you
@me; after dropping two atomic bombs on them and inundating entire populations for centuries to come, rebuilding their country was the least we could have done. We fought them after we were attacked at home and won but that was not enough. We had to show them our superiority by trying to obliterate them from the face of the earth. We used the same technology that we tried to avoid the Nazis using by employing all their scientists. We then unleashed that power onto another nation. We acted no better than the Nazis.
The Japanese military during the 1930s and 1940s is often compared to the military of Nazi Germany during 1933–45 because of the sheer scale of suffering. Much of the controversy regarding Japan's role in World War II revolves around the death rates of prisoners of war and civilians under Japanese occupation. The historian Chalmers Johnson has written that:
Cannibalism
Many written reports and testimonies collected by the Australian War Crimes Section of the Tokyo tribunal, and investigated by prosecutor William Webb (the future Judge-in-Chief), indicate that Japanese personnel in many parts of Asia and the Pacific committed acts of cannibalism against Allied prisoners of war. In many cases this was inspired by ever-increasing Allied attacks on Japanese supply lines, and the death and illness of Japanese personnel as a result of hunger. However, according to historian Yuki Tanaka: "cannibalism was often a systematic activity conducted by whole squads and under the command of officers".[56] This frequently involved murder for the purpose of securing bodies. For example, an Indian POW, Havildar Changdi Ram, testified that: "[on November 12, 1944] the Kempeitai beheaded [an Allied] pilot. I saw this from behind a tree and watched some of the Japanese cut flesh from his arms, legs, hips, buttocks and carry it off to their quarters... They cut it [into] small pieces and fried it."[57]
In some cases, flesh was cut from living people: another Indian POW, Lance Naik Hatam Ali (later a citizen of Pakistan), testified that in New Guinea:
Perhaps the most senior officer convicted of cannibalism was Lt Gen. Yoshio Tachibana (立花芳夫,Tachibana Yoshio), who with 11 other Japanese personnel was tried in August 1946 in relation to the execution of U.S. Navy airmen, and the cannibalism of at least one of them, during August 1944, on Chichi Jima, in the Bonin Islands. The airmen were beheaded on Tachibana's orders. As military and international law did not specifically deal with cannibalism, they were tried for murder and "prevention of honorable burial". Tachibana was sentenced to death, and hanged.[59]
Americans were referred as kichiku (mongrel beast or mongrelized apes).[60]
Human experimentation and biological warfare
Special Japanese military units conducted experiments on civilians and POWs in China. One of the most infamous was Unit 731 under Shirō Ishii. Victims were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia, amputations, and were used to test biological weapons, among other experiments. Anesthesia was not used because it was believed to affect results.[36]
According to GlobalSecurity.org, the experiments carried out by Unit 731 alone caused 3,000 deaths.[38] Furthermore, according to the 2002 International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare, the number of people killed by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and human experiments is around 580,000.[39] According to other sources, "tens of thousands, and perhaps as many as 400,000, Chinese died of bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and other diseases...", resulting from the use of biological warfare.[40] Top officers of Unit 731 were not prosecuted for war crimes after the war, in exchange for turning over the results of their research to the United States. They were also reportedly given responsible positions in Japan's pharmaceutical industry, medical schools and health ministry.[41][42]
One case of human experimentation occurred in Japan itself. At least nine out of 12 crew members survived the crash of a U.S. Army Air Forces B-29 bomber on Kyūshū, on May 5, 1945. (This plane was Lt. Marvin Watkins' crew of the 29th Bomb Group of the 6th Bomb Squadron.[43]) The bomber's commander was sent to Tokyo for interrogation, while the other survivors were taken to the anatomy department of Kyushu University, at Fukuoka, where they were subjected to vivisection or killed.[44] On March 11, 1948, 30 people including several doctors were brought to trial by the Allied war crimes tribunal. Charges of cannibalism were dropped, but 23 people were found guilty of vivisection or wrongful removal of body parts. Five were sentenced to death, four to life imprisonment, and the rest to shorter terms. In 1950, the military governor of Japan, General Douglas MacArthur, commuted all of the death sentences and significantly reduced most of the prison terms. All of those convicted in relation to the university vivisection were free by 1958.[citation needed] In addition, many participants who were responsible for these vivisections were never charged by the Americans or their allies in exchange for the information on the experiments.[45]
In 2006, former IJN medical officer Akira Makino stated that he was ordered—as part of his training—to carry out vivisection on about 30 civilian prisoners in the Philippines between December 1944 and February 1945.[46] The surgery included amputations.[47] Ken Yuasa, a former military doctor in China, has also admitted to similar incidents in which he was compelled to participate.[48]
I'm not saying what we did was right, but... the list goes on:
To Jessica Blue
And the USA giving Native Americans blankets infected with small pox was nice. That was just the beginning, don't finger point at other nations when this nation started off trying to exterminate people as well. If you really knew history you would see that there has been good and bad people in all cultures. What matters is how a people are today, not what their ancestors did, unless you want to be held accountable for the death of so many tribes in this country, and slavery, etc., etc., etc.
Damn Jessica, those are some very horrible things to have happened to anyone. So what are you trying to say? That they deserve what is happening to them now. Leave the past where it is and lets move forward. As k pointed out not too many countries or cultures can say they are as innocent and pure as the driven snow. Get over yourself and leave your history lessons for someone who gives a $#!t. Right now what is happening is horrible and we need to pull together to pray, help and do whatever we can to protect the people we love and even the people we don't know. We are all connected in the grand scheme of things and what effects one effects all. Peace and love
To Ms. Blue:
Your history 'lessons' are out of place just now and in this context... and there were a lot of horrible inhumane acts done during those terrible war years by all nations: the world had gone crazy. Hopefully, we have advanced somewhat. We don't need to 'forget' what happened... indeed, we need to remember lest it happen again. We learn, hopefully, from the past how to build a better future at home and abroad.
Japan of today is not the Japan of yesteryear just as most modern nations are not: that particular type of poltical upheaval is over and done. We are dealing now with other and even more pressing problems worldwide, some have learned to work together in spite of past errors and grievousness. (After all, we are the ones who dropped the 'bomb'.. not once, but twice on Japan). And some nations have not learned to work together and probably never will. Let us not be one of those.
G-d help Japan and bless her and her people in this, her hour of need.
I never meant in any way to imply that the events of today are deserved. I don't believe I wrote anything of the sort. I was responding to this:
soljhgurl --"after dropping two atomic bombs on them and inundating entire populations for centuries to come, rebuilding their country was the least we could have done. We fought them after we were attacked at home and won but that was not enough. We had to show them our superiority by trying to obliterate them from the face of the earth. We used the same technology that we tried to avoid the Nazis using by employing all their scientists. We then unleashed that power onto another nation. We acted no better than the Nazis."
Also, I was not implying that we have never done anything wrong, or that dropping those two bombs was not wrong. My point was simply that our dropping of the bombs was not entirely without reason. If we had dropped them on Nazi Germany, I doubt many people would feel so bad about it; and yet, the Japanese (at the time) look to be as bad, or arguably nearly so, as the Nazis were.
i am just glad they have a stable goverment there ..unlike some..
the guy using history on japan needs to stop watching DORA DORA DORA !!!...
Prayers and good thoughts for Japan, and us all!
Maybe we can get some real energy ideas started now. To think the ding a ling ragan tore off the solar collectors back 30 years ago. If we would have been doing what we should have this problem with the reactors would not be happening. Get the drill baby drill dopes now on the spot, idiots.
How tiresome ..... and juvenile. Get a life.
WTF?
If you dummies woldn't have elected dum ass ragan, the guy that tore off the solar collector, remember the idiot. We wouldnot have the problem with the reactors in japan. Dummies, now were all going to pay for it.
WTF? x2
I'm with Duane. WTF?
I'm with you guys
WTF?
I’m right there with you guys! WTF?
Huh, WTF??????
The solar collectors were removed because they were damaging the roof. The technology wasn't ready for prime time yet.
WTF ??
joe erie, what the hell just came out of your mind? I know its just a blog spot but damn, can you even pretend like you know what you're talking about and spell, maybe? Really, WTF is your problem?
I can't help but wonder how these quacks and fault lines could not someday becomes overtaken by volcanic interruptions and flow into them. Kind of the weak link idea. And leak paths.
Magma in subduction zones makes it's way vertically to the earth's surface. It doesn't follow the shallowly dipping (not far from horizontal) fault line of the subducting crust.
Volcanic interruptions??? LMAO !!
Okay, let me explain. Volcanos happen along weak spots in the fault line. Even though it sounds like we could release the pressure from a fault by releasing pressure through a volcanic opening, I saw Mt. St. Helens while it was erupting and there is no way we have anything near the technology to make this happen. The size and unpredicable behavior of molten rock is not easy to direct as we have see in parts of Hawa'i'i. Barriers to redirect lave flow lay buried under tons of cold rock which oozed over. The planet is only solid on the outer crust and molten fluid inside. The fluid moves with the orbit of the moon and earth while we live out our daily lives. Truly amazing!
although jay's commit is not called for ,and Rose is somewhat right, but it was the U.S.S. Ward that fired depth charges on the japanese submarine outside of pearl harbor, thus being the first shot fired in the attack.
They couldn't read the "Trespassers Will be Depth Charged" sign because it was only in English and Spanish.;-p
Pointing fingers. Remember, there's three pointing right back :)