ERTH 2415 Chapter 6: ERTH chapter 6.docx

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Earth Sciences
• Course: ERTH 2415
• Professor: Claire Samson

Document Summary

Indian ocean tsunami (december 26th, 2004): caused death and destruction in 13 countries with an estimated death toll of 245, 000 (but probably higher in reality). Countries hit hard were indonesia (198, 000 dead), sri lanka (30, 000), india (11, 000) and. Enormous collision causes frequent and huge subduction caused earthquakes in turn causing tsunami"s. December 24th, 1200 km long fault rupture began as a 100 km long portion of the north-south oriented plate ruptured and slipped. 3km/s for 4 minutes then 2. 5 km/s for the next 6 minutes, Fault movement created the second largest earthquake in the world in past 100 years. Rupture started 30 km below sea floor & caused movements up to 20 m that shifted some. Sea floor raised by 10 m. waves moved east-west direction perpendicular to fault. Earthquake caused buildings to collapse but evidence swept away by tsunami that came minutes later. Most powerful tsunami went west (indonesia and thailand) and west (india, srilanka)