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Russia saw an 8.8-fingering earthquake on Wednesday, which is one of the strongest earthquakes ever. However, unlike the devastating tsunami of Boxing Day 2004 in the Indian Ocean and Japan 2011, the earthquake did not follow a terrible tsunami, as many people feared.
Although Wednesday tsunami caused some damage to coastal areas in the Pacific region, it was quite serious. But why?
What is the cause of a mega earthquake?
The Russian is located in the Far East in the Doodle Peninsula “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a region suffer from several earthquakes and volcanoes.
The upper layers of the Earth are divided into segments, called a tectonic plate, which all move relative to each other. “Pacific Ring of Fire”, however, is an arc of these plates that extend around Pacific.
According to the British Geological Survey, 80% of the world’s earthquakes are accompanied by the ring.
The Pacific plate goes to about 8 cm (3 inches) per year in the north-west, where it comes in contact with another, small plate, called the Okhotsk Microplate. This movement is only doubled, the rate at which the nails increase, but rapidly by tectonic standards.
The Pacific plate is the ocean, which means that it has dense rocks and wants to drown under the less dense microplate. As it sinks towards the center of the Earth, it becomes hot and melts, effectively disappears.
But this process is not always smooth; Often, the plates may get stuck as a other, and the overriding plate is pulled downwards.
This friction can build in thousands of years, but then suddenly it can be released suddenly in a few minutes. Sudden release causes release called megathrust earthquake.
Lecturer at Environmental Ceemology at University College London. Stephen Hicks told BBC News that usually, we imagine a sub -center.
“However, for such large earthquakes, the mistake would have broken more than several hundreds of kilometers. It is the area of such large amounts of slip and mistake that generates such a high earthquake magnitude,” he said.
Why was it not bad like a previous tsunami?
Sudden movement between tectonic plates, which causes megathrous earthquake, can displace the water above. This displacement can travel to the beach as a tsunami.
In the deep ocean, tsunamis can travel more than 500mph (800 km/h), rapidly as a passenger airplane. But the distance between the waves is too long and the waves are not very much; Rarely over a meter.
But as soon as a tsunami enters the shallow water near the land, it slows down, often up to 20–30 mph. The distance between the waves becomes smaller, and waves grow in height, which can effectively make a wall of water near the coast.
However, it is not guaranteed in any way that a very strong earthquake will reach especially long tsunamis away inland.
According to Russian officials, Wednesday’s earthquake caused a 4 -meter (13 feet) tsunami waves in some parts of eastern Russia. This Indian Ocean and Japan did not have tens of waves of waves in Boxing Day 2004 in 2011.
Professor Professor Prof. Lisa McNell at the University of Southampton told BBC News that the height of the tsunami wave is also affected by the local shapes of Seephlore near the coast and near the land where it comes.
“These factors affect how many population of the coast, how serious the effect is,” he said.
The US Geological Survey states that the earthquake was about 20.7 km (12.9 mi) below the Earth’s surface, focused on a quite narrow depth. This can lead to more displacement of seaflor and, therefore, a large tsunami wave.
Dr. Hick suggested the possibility that a conservative estimate of the depth of the earthquake could be guessed. He told BBC News, “Possibly, you can replace the earthquake from another 20 kilometers depth, and this will actually reduce the dimensions of tsunami waves.”
Improvement in better warning system
The development of better initial warning systems is another important element why this tsunami was not as bad. They are important because scientists have a limited ability to estimate when the earthquake will occur.
Due to the high incident of earthquake in the Pacific region, many countries have tsunami centers, warning through public announcements to vacate the population.
There was no such system when the 2004 boxing day tsunami was.
The US Geological Survey recorded a 7.4 measuring earthquake in the same area ten days before the megathrust earthquake.
Prof. McNell stated that it could be an early release of a prediction, energy, but it is not a prophet of the exact time of the future earthquake.
“We can use how fast the plates are moving forward, GPS to measure current movements and when previous earthquakes occurred, we can only use this information to predict the possibility of earthquake,” he told BBC News.
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