very good- you'd think that a 100yard object would pretty much obliterate the water AND the bottom- making an actual dry spot to be filled by inflowing water a few seconds later similar to shooting a 1" deep puddle with a 30-.06 deer rifle. as far as rhe run-up goes, i think it would have a lot to do w/ the bottom-if there was a cliff w/1,000' of water under it, i might be little more that a sloshing rise in sea level. the same wave hitting a reef where the depths went form 1,000' to 4' in 100 yards, would probably form a giant, beaking, barreled, wave similar to the one shown on video by cnn. the same wave to hit coastal ga. where it is only 600' deep 100miles out may be more like a giant river simply overflowing its banks, with lots of forward motion to miles of water behind the wave front. bottom structure has a lot to do w/ it.
i will be gradually switching over to yahoo mail (it has 100 FREE megs of storage). please cc to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From: "Sterling K. Webb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: [email protected] >CC: harlan trammell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,Marco Langbroek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,Herbert Raab <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] meteorites and tsunamis >Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 20:50:01 -0600 > >Hi, > > The very large U. of Arizona Press collection >"Hazards Due To Comets and Asteroids" (1994) has in it a >paper "Tsunami Generated by Small Asteroid Impacts" by >Hills, Nemchinov, Popov, and Teterev. The classic >"Effects of Nuclear Weapons" by Glasstone and Dolan is >good too (it has a chapter on tsunamis). > The figure of a 100
meter stone (or 40 meter iron) >given by Herbert is a significant one. Smaller objects >than these are likely to be slowed down considerably >coming through the atmosphere (or break up altogether) >with a serious loss of energy, but a 100 meter stone or >40 meter iron will reach the ground pretty much at its >celestrial velocity. > When you talk about a tidal wave's height, there are >two "heights." First, there's the height of the >undisturbed free-travelling ocean wave, and second, the >"runup height" which is the height the wave achieves >when it runs up on the land and is forced higher and >higher. Usually the runup height is 10 or more times >higher than the ocean wave, depending on the >characteristics of the shore and its shallows. > In Sri Lanka a thousand kilometers or more from the >epicenter, reports are of a 15 to 30 foot runup
height. >In Sumatra, the runup height must have been much >greater, but there are few witness reports because >anybody close enough to get a really good look died. > Reading through these two sources, I get the >impression that the recent tidal wave was somewhat >smaller than that that would have been produced by a 100 >meter stone hitting the ocean at the same spot. In >evaluating that statement you should know that I think >the recent disaster was much worse than we realize even >now. > There is a phenomenon of big disasters, that they so >devastate certain areas that no word gets out at all and >the full scale of the disaster is not appreciated. For >example, on Sunday morning the deaths were given as >14,000 and today (Tuesday) the figure given is 52,000. I >would not be surprised if the actual death toll when it >is fully known were
closer to 175,000 +/- 60,000. > In Banda Atche (capital of the Sumatran province >nearest the epicenter), a London Financial Times >reporter interviewed survivors in neighborhoods where >there were survivors and was told by the residents that >the death toll was 80% of their neighborhoods. Banda >Atche is a city of 100,000 people, so it's quite likely >that there were 52,000 or more deaths in just that one >city. > A town of 10,000 people ten miles down the coast >from Banda Atche has not yet even been reached by >anybody from the outside, but flyovers have not spotted >any living moving human beings there. Counted deaths in >Sri Lanka are officially up to 22,000 and those figures >do contain any reports from the rebel-controlled north >of the island. And none of the counted death totals >includes the large numbers of people that must have
died >when they were swept out to sea. But there are reports >of very large numbers of corpses washing up on the Thai >and Malaysian west coasts. > At any rate, even this considerable catastrophe is >less than what the smallest asteroid (100 meter) that >could make it through the atmosphere full-tilt would >produce. A 400 meter object like 2004 MN4 striking the >ocean at 20 km/s would produce a tsunami about 100 times >bigger than the recent one. It would achieve runup >heights of about 200 feet even 1000-2000 kilometers >away. > So it's a really good thing that 2004 MN4 is going >to miss us in 2029. Thanks to those "pre-discovery" >plates, Herbert can get his sleep, none of us have to >start building arks or move to mountain tops! > > >Sterling K. Webb >------------------------------------------------------------- > >harlan
trammell wrote: > > > i am looking for some definitive information in regard > > to the size of meteorites that could generate > > tsunamis like the big one in the indian ocean. is > > there any info on this? are their any graduate or > > doctoral level papesr published on this? > > > > >______________________________________________ >Meteorite-list mailing list >[email protected] >http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
