Our observations on many different shorelines around the Indian Ocean went a long way in helping us to understand the variability of deposits from a single event in multiple coastal settings.” “At the time, that tsunami was the largest natural disaster in our lifetimes, both in terms of lives lost and widespread impact. “Not long after we started our California work in 2004, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami struck which changed the focus of our efforts for several years,” said Richmond. “Our studies were conducted in a variety of coastal environments impacted by the tsunami and went a long way in helping us to understand the variability of deposits from a single event in multiple coastal settings,” Richmond said.īefore the Indian Ocean Tsunami occurred, USGS geologists had been assessing tsunami hazards in California, seeking evidence of past tsunami deposits along California’s shores. The tsunami effects were studied in an effort to develop techniques to improve the identification of paleotsunami deposits in the geologic record. Geological SurveyPublic domainīruce Richmond, a coastal geologist with the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, Calif, along with USGS scientists Bruce Jaffe and Guy Gelfenbaum joined international survey teams to documenttsunami impacts, collect water level information, and map erosion and deposition of sediments to characterize the sedimentary record. Starin Fernanda, Geological Survey & Mines Bureau of Sri Lanka, taking measurement of height of tsunami, indicated by gouge mark in tree from debris carried by the tsunami.Dr. In Aceh and Sumatera Utara Provinces, Indonesia, at least 108,100 people were killed, 127,700 are missing and presumed dead and 426,800 were displaced by the earthquake and tsunami.ĭr. Tsunami runup heights of more than 30 meters were observed along the west coast of Sumatra. The 2004 tsunami was the deadliest and one of the most destructive in recorded history. “For the 2004 tsunami, the loss of life far outweighed damage to infrastructure, whereas for the 2011 tsunami, there was significant damage to infrastructure in Japan.”Ĭountries hardest hit by the 2004 tsunami included Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Somalia, Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Kenya “The foremost impact, of course, is the loss of life in both cases,” said Eric Geist, USGS research geophysicist. The tsunami was only recently rivaled by the 2011 tsunami in Japan. The tsunami arrived in northern Sumatra approximately 30 minutes after the earthquake, in Thailand approximately an hour and a half to two hours after the earthquake, and in Sri Lanka approximately two to three hours after the earthquake. The displacement of water above the sea floor triggered the tsunami, which caused catastrophic levels of destruction in countries around the Indian Ocean basin, reaching as far as the east coast of Africa. M9.1 Sumatra-Andaman Islands Earthquake Tectonic Setting and Seismicity MapĪccording to USGS scientists, the sea floor near the earthquake was uplifted several meters.

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