Category EA P10 Ocean Floor Affecting Tsunami Size?

Abstract Tsunamis are huge waves that can cause a lot of damage to cities, and

can kill many people. They can travel very fast and leave people with little

time to prepare and get away from where the tsunami will hit. They can

cause great damage to cities that can take a long time to rebuild. Can the

shape of the ocean floor affect the size of these huge waves? A tsunami

created by a landslide can be simulated using a tank and gravel dropped

down a slope. Using this it is possible to test if the ocean floor really does

affect the size of a tsunami. Flat, sloped, valley, one hill, two hill, and three

hill ocean floors were tested. Five trials of each sea floor type were done,

and the results were surprising. Tsunamis are affected by the sea floor’s

shape, and that can contribute to why some areas have been known to

have huge tsunamis. The tsunami starts out small and as the water gets

shallower pushes on the sea floor causing it to grow taller and become

this huge destructive wave. As the Tsunami is pushing down on the sea

floor its shape can affect how large the tsunami is.

Bibliography http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~ward/papers/single.pdf
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