Tsunami

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Tsunami (disambiguation).

A destroyed town in Sumatra after being hit by a tsunami, caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

A tsunami (plural: tsunamis or tsunami; from Japanese: 津波, lit. "harbor wave";^[1] English pronunciation: /suːˈnɑːmi/ soo-nah-mee or /tsuːˈnɑːmi/ tsoo-nah-mee^[2]), also called a tsunami wave train,^[3] and at one time referred to as a tidal wave, is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, usually an ocean, though it can occur in large lakes. Tsunamis are a frequent occurrence in Japan; approximately 195 events have been recorded.^[4] Owing to the immense volumes of water and the high energy involved, tsunamis can devastate coastal regions.
Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions (including detonations of underwater nuclear devices), landslides glacier calvings^[5] and other mass movements, meteorite ocean impacts or similar impact events, and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami.
The Greek historian Thucydides was the first to relate tsunami to submarine earthquakes, but the understanding of a tsunami's nature remained slim until the 20th century and is the subject of ongoing research. Many early geological, geographical, and oceanographic texts refer to tsunamis as "seismic sea waves."
Some meteorological conditions, such as deep depressions that cause tropical cyclones, can generate a storm surge, called a meteotsunami, which can raise tides several metres above normal levels. The displacement comes from low atmospheric pressure within the centre of the depression. As these storm surges reach shore, they may resemble (though are not) tsunamis, inundating vast areas of land.