Graphic of the Day - Tsunami Simplified

Miles Traer strikes again! As with THIS other recent offering by him also produced during his recent visit to the recently-concluded American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco, he explains a potentially complex scientific principle using language and art design capable of benefiting all levels of learners in the spirit of UDL. Image by Miles Traer and courtesy of AGU via Twitter (all rights reserved).

Of Tsunamis, Whales, Coral, and Sand Dollars

Today the newly-formed, real-life League of Extraordinary Gentlemen conducted a field trip to Santa Barbara County hunting for Miocene Epoch petrified whale bone along the Gaviota Coast as well as anything else of interest that might present itself. After stops at Gaviota and El Capitan State Beaches and a intermediate beach accessed directly from Highway 101 frequented by surfers and nudists, the group headed into Santa Barbara for lunch-dinner at Harry's and a short visit to Chaucer's Bookstore before one more stop at a fossil-bearing site in the San Antonio Valley of northern Santa Barbara County en route home. A wonderful day was had by all. Below are some of the highlights.

This one-foot-thick iron oxide-stained layer at Gaviota S.B. strikes me as being a prehistoric tsunami deposit (or it could be a turbidite deposit).

This verticality of bedding at Gaviota S.B. indicates a fault trace runs through this location.

This is a largish boulder of Miocene fossilized coral at El Capitan S.B. I wish I had placed my geologist's hammer on it for scale.

Note the presence of calcium carbonate stalactitic formations within the cavity at center of this image of the coral boulder.

Large fossilized sand dollar-infused stratified boulder from San Antonio Valley.

Fossilized sand dollar in San Antonia Valley excavated and discarded by a gopher.

Sand dollar-infused boulder at San Antonio Valley locality we visited today.

Close-up of aforementioned sand dollar-infused boulder.

Today's fossilized sand dollar finds.

My petrified whale bone finds from today. All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Ghosts From Tonight 316 Years Ago

Tonight at about 9:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, a M9.0+ earthquake struck the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, and Southwest British Columbia. It was generated by a full rupture of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a large subduction zone roughly equivalent of the one which caused the Great Tohoku Earthquake in Japan in 2011. This event generated a Pacific-wide tsunami which caused damage in Japan where it was recorded by monks as an "orphan tsunami" as there was no quake in Japan to which it could be attributed. Given Native American oral traditions and tsunami deposits along the coasts of Oregon and Washington, it is clear that there were casualties among local peoples at that time. This earthquake generated lasting topographical changes where parts of the coast were sunk below sea level killing these sitka spruce trees whose roots previously had been in freshwater above the heavier seawater level and in some cases the forests were dropped into the sea as the ocean extended inland. Such a case happened with the Neskowin Ghost Forest along the Oregon Coast in Tillamook County. Before tonight I had not previously seen this haunting relic of not only the 1700 earthquake, but in the case of some trees, other such events over the course of the past two millennium or so. Over that period, successive great quakes have lowered the land in this region. However, the most recent event alone dropped this area by up to 30 feet in elevation.

Central Coast Tsunamis Aren't An Abstraction

Earlier this evening I became aware of the AGU abstract below written by E.L. Blanck and entitled Large California Tsunamis From Central Coast Historians And Central Coast Newspaper Records which for an aficionado of local history as well as disasters is 100% pure gold. It gives some detail to some events for which I had no previous knowledge. What this document demonstrates is that the Central Coast has been hit by tsunamis much more frequently in the early historical period than more recently which is a bit ominous when you wrap your mind around all the repercussions of that reality.

"Approximately, 1996, Unocal historian Darwin Sainz mentioned the newly built Union Oil “Oilport” refinery in what is now Shell Beach (between Pismo & Avila Beaches and at 50 to 100 feet elevation) was destroyed by a tsunami in the early 1900’s. July 2009, George Plafker reported, “a bigger earthquake and a more destructive tsunami than the 1964 event are possible in the future”.

The 1812 Santa Barbara Channel earthquake produced 5 tsunami waves approximately 50 feet in height to the front of the Santa Barbara Presidio based on a Franciscan Father’s journal. A book on “Shipwrecks, Smugglers, and Maritime Mysteries” by Wheeler & Kallman reports the largest wave was 48-50 feet estimated by the USGS west of Santa Barbara near Goleta.

The “History of San Luis Obispo County, California” by Thompson & West (1883) reports 12 feet tsunamis occurred on August 13, 1868 (Peruvian earthquake) and April 16, 1877.

On November 22, 1878, turbulent water in the absence of wind produced tsunamis that broke over the Morro Bay sand spit (current quad sheet high elevations 66 to 97 feet N to S), destroyed Avila & Pt. Sal piers, damaging Cayucos pier.

A Japanese earthquake resulted in a tsunami at 12:40 PM December 9, 1907, near high tide and in already heavy seas, that stood out from the rest of the storm due to its’ enormous height. It wrecked the Ventura pier (12-13-1907, SLO Tribune) and the Oilport pier (12-13-1907, SLO Tribune & 12-6-1976 also 12-14-1907, Santa Maria Times & 12-10-1907 SLO Telegram) at Shell beach and destroyed the Oilport refinery (Darwin Sainz, personal communication).

Before 7 AM on November 26, 1913, tsunamis wrecked the Monterey area including waves 10 to 15 feet above the Del Monte wharf. At Seaside, “Immense domes of water and foam shot up above the general height” … “appearing from here to be higher than the highest sandhills along the shore.”(12-2-1913, SLO Tribune) Current quad sheet high elevations are 120 feet.

These reports of historic tsunamis represent wave elevations significantly higher than the 1964 Alaska earthquake tsunami that is typically used for emergency planning for tsunami inundation in California. Since it appears 4 much larger tsunamis occurred in the Central Coast area in 1812, 1878, 1907 and 1913; it appears we may have become complacent during this recent period of tsunami quiescence. Emergency planning for Central Coast tsunamis should be anticipating tsunami waves in the 50 to 100 feet elevation range."

Top Ten Most Significant Disasters of 2015

Below are what I consider the most significant disasters of 2015 in descending order of relative significance to me. Others undoubtedly and perhaps justifiably would arrange these differently and trade some out for other events not listed. There were other events I was tempted to list but this is my final selection for 2015.

1. El Niño 2015-2016 - This event effected the entire world throughout most of the year and whose ancillary events killed thousands of people around the world in droughts, famines, wildfires, floods, storms, landslides, and such. 
2. Nepal Earthquake - M7.8 event on April 25th in the Himalayan Mountains killed over 9,000 people and injured over 23,000 people.
3. Mina Hajj Stampede - The most deadly stampede to date at the hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, killed 2,411 pilgrims on September 24th. Worshippers from all over the world, particularly Persian people, were among the casualties which further soured relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. 
4. Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 - This passenger flight was destroyed by an ISIS bomb over the Sinai Desert of Egypt on October 31st killing all 224 people aboard.  
5. Tianjin Explosions - This spectacular nighttime industrial accident in China on August 12th killed 173 people officially but possibly actually 1,400 people, including 95 of over 1,000 firefighters fighting the fire as well as 11 policemen.
6. Illapel Earthquake - M8.3 event on September 16th along the coast of Chile generated a Pacific-wide tsunami with local run-ups to 15 feet and 3 feet in Hawaii. 13 people were killed by the quake and 6 are missing.
7. Western North America Drought - The ongoing Western Drought continued this year with California entering its third or fourth year of drought depending upon how one counts it. This drought in the aggregate may become the most costly disaster in United States history. California was the hardest hit by the drought in 2015 which led to water shortages and rationing, massive water pumping and resulting damaging land subsidence in the Central Valley, distressing tree mortality in forests across the state, and unprecedented wildfire behavior.
8. Valley Fire - This 76,000 acre fire began on September 12th in Lake County, California. It was pushed by powerful winds in drought-withered fuels quickly over-running a helitack crew burning 4 firefighters on the initial attack and killed four civilians in the following hours. It devastated parts or all of entire communities including Anderson Springs, Cobb, Harbin Hot Springs, Hidden Valley Lake, and Middletown, CA. Destroyed were 1,955 structures including 1,281 homes, 27 multi-family structures, 66 commercial properties and 581 other structures.
9. Hurricane Patricia - Strongest cyclone ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere struck Mexico on October 23rd with no casualties (6 were killed earlier in Central America). At its peak it had the most powerful maximum sustained winds ever recorded anywhere on Earth (200 mph) and the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded anywhere on Earth (879 mb).
10. Canadian Wildfires - A perfect storm of longer-term climate change, short-term drought, and decades of fire suppression conspired to generate unprecedented wildfire behavior in the boreal forests of Canada this year.

This Was Happening 315 Years Ago Now!

At this time tonight 315 years ago Pacific-wide tsunami looking very much like this graphic depicts and triggered by a M9.0+ megathrust earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone was unfolding on the west coast of North America and eventually the entire Pacific Ocean Basin to varying degrees of intensity.

The Very Best Tohoku Tsunami Video

In my humble opinion this is the very best 2011 Tohoku Tsunami video clip I have seen and for a variety of reasons. These reasons include the fact that we see in it a lot of devastation; about as much as any other of the best video clips I've seen. It also shows the tsunami from the beginning starting with the water being receded initially up the inland river in the middle of the city and then the initial wave and the escalation thereafter. This video clip also shows an urban conflagration in the hours following the tsunami as the sun sets on a horrible day in Japan and that evening gloaming adding a hellish visual component to the overall scene and experience. Unfortunately, the video does not provide any indication of what city we watch here being first battered and drowned and then burned with fire. Note: I only recently found this video despite periodically checking for raw video of this disaster that I have no seen before. This leads me to believe there is as of yet more footage shot of this event that remains to be released some of which will continue to turn up over time as this did.

Note: view my Top Ten Most Dramatic Tohoku Tsunami Videos. 

2013 Mid-State Fair Fine Art Expo

Earlier tonight I was an honored guest at the Mid-State Fair fine art meet & greet held indoors at the Fine Arts building. While there (but after my wine and cheese... and other scrumptuousness) I captured images of the following works which caught my eye out of the many more that did not.

Untitled oil abstract by Devon Pitts. This is my favorite work out of tonight's offerings. Artistically not the best thing I saw tonight but by God thematically and in execution I love it. It earned 1st place in the Advanced Amateur category.

Untitled by Charlene Martyn. I like the tsunami coming in to shore as a towering breaking wave with a city in front of it.,\ Behind it a ship is being bombed by what looks like a WWII Japanese Zero fighter aircraft. The judges had this labeled as a painting collage(?). This work earned a 1st place award in the Advanced Amateur category.

Untitled "representational"by Margrete Koreska. Earned Honorable Mention in the Professional category. The judges obviously sucked as a group and know little about art as was evident in many of their judgements for this contest.

This oil painting titled "Hindu Man" by my friend Susie Christian of Morro Bay earned Honorable Mention in the Advanced Amateur category under the heading of "representational".  Given the competition it faced it deserved to rank higher.

Untitled photograph by Haley Przyybyla. It won 1st place in the advanced amateur landscape category. I love these weather themes and this photographer captured a complicated atmosphere that day.

Untitled by Briana Dutra.  Obviously captured from a passenger jet aircraft over undescribed region. I have a growing interest in images captured from aircraft and this one really grabbed me. It earned 3rd place in the 10-14 age group in the miscellaneous amateur category.

Untitled by Cheryl Strahl featuring the Alabama Hills and Movie Road in the foreground and Mt. Whitney and the Eastern Sierra Nevadas on the background. This earned 1st place honors in the professional color landscape category. 

Untitled Bill Sima taken of a sunset in the Paso Robles area. It earned 1st place in the professional digitally processed category. I call this WOW sunsets!

Untitled by Kurt Bentzinger of a vineyard with an oak tree apparently captured in the Central Coast region. It earned 2nd place in the professional digitally processed category.

Tsunami As Harvester of Souls

While surfing the web recently I came across this image for the first time. I do not know who took this tragic image nor do I know the precise date or location. What I do know is that it is a scene of devastation and carnage in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Given the architecture of the structures and and the number of bodies in this image and how it looks compared to all the other images I have seen of this disaster from the perspective of Thailand and Indonesia I believe this image shows a scene in Indonesia. I have looked at this image magnified and I believe there are well over 100 bloated, leaking corpses tangled in this jetsam and flotsam.

Crescent City's Dark Disaster

At this hour 49 years ago a series of tsunami waves was rolling into Crescent City, CA, in what has become known as the Crescent City Tsunami of 1964. It was generated by the M9.2 Good Friday Earthquake of 1964. I am the proud owner of a pristine copy of the now out-of-print book above that was published on the 20-year anniversary in 1984. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - My Tsunami Vision

This morning we headed down to La Jolla Shores for breakfast and some leisure time before resuming and completing this weekend's Gem Faire at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. This was an incredibly enjoyable escape from the soul-crushing environment of Gem Faire and allowed the team to recharge its batteries quite effectively methinks. For some reason while there this morning I oft found myself thinking about tsunami  as it relates to the tsunami threat to this idyllic community nestled along one of the most beautiful stretches of California Coast. In particular, when viewing the scene above I found myself rather vividly envisioning a tsunami running right through the gap visible above with cars out in front of it attempting to make their escape. This mental image coming to mind in this place on this day felt odd in contrast to the tranquility and beauteousness I experienced and witnessed there today. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Tohoku Tsunami Hitting Miyako Harbor

Given that the 8th anniversary of the 2004 Andaman-Sumatra Earthquake & Indian Ocean Tsunami just passed and a haunting movie ("The Impossible") about the story of one family of survivors hit theaters in Los Angeles and New York last Friday with more theater openings to come it seems tsunami are on my mind of late. Recently, while conducting one of my periodic trollings of Youtube for new tsunami videos I came across this compelling raw video footage of the 2011 Great Tohuku Earthquake & Tsunami which footage I had not seen before. More Tohoku tsunami video links are to be found below the movie player below.


Top Ten Most Dramatic Tohoku Tsunami Videos

Another Top Ten Most Dramatic Tohoku Tsunami Videos

Indian Ocean Tsunami Effects At Koh Similan

Just a day or two past the eighth anniversary of the Andaman-Sumatra Earthquake and resulting Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 I felt compelled to go find something new on Youtube about this event. I have already posted a great many videos here of that event and am convinced I have seen most of the extant footage available online. However, I hoped that I might get lucky and find something new. Although I've been familiar with what happened to the tourists at Koh Similan during this event I had never seen this presentation and video perspective before. Not only is the footage compelling in an understated way (there are no crashing waves or scenes of stark terror) and is well-captioned and not over-edited and features a nice little primer on the basic scientific details of the earthquake and tsunami. All in all this is great stuff and be sure to check out the following link:
Top Ten Most Dramatic Indian Ocean Tsunami Videos

"Silence" After The Tsunami

In 1999, Delerium released "Silence" (co-written and sung by Sarah McLachlan) which was subsequently  reformulated into a myriad of remixes by various musical artists mostly in the electronica music genre and more narrowly the trance and electronic dance music (EDM) subgenres. The best and most famous and commercially successful remix was Tiesto's In Search of Sunrise remix of it in 2000. This trance classic quickly became a staple in dance halls around the world and remains thus to do this day. In 2004, Indonesia and vicinity were rocked and then raked by the Andaman-Sumatra Earthquake and resulting Indian Ocean Tsunami. A few weeks later in early 2005 there was a "star-studded" televised telethon to raise money for survivors of the disaster. Arguably, the high point of this was McLachlan singing "Silence" in a live performance with Delerium for the first time (up to that point the world had been content to listen to the recording studio version only).

I first encountered this amazing trance track in 2001 during my Electronica Enlightenment. It was the first song featured on Disk One of the two-disk Club Nation America which was my first ever purchase of electronica or for that matter any CD, period!

I have placed the lyrics below the music player. Crank up your speakers and enjoy!  

Give me release
Witness me
I am outside
Give me peace
Heaven holds a sense of wonder
And I wanted to believe that I'd get caught up
When the rage in me subsides

Passion
Chokes the flower
Until she cries no more
Possessing all the beauty
Hungry still for more

Heaven holds a sense of wonder
And I wanted to believe that I'd get caught up
When the rage in me subsides

In this white wave
I am sinking
In this silence
In this white wave...
In this silence...

I believe I can't help this longing...
Comfort me I can't hold it all in...
If you won't let me...

Heaven holds a sense of wonder
And I wanted to believe that I'd get caught up
When the rage in me subsides

In this white wave
I am sinking
In this silence
In this white wave...
In this silence...

I believe I have seen you...
In this white wave
You are silent
You are breathing
In this white wave...

I am free

Lyrics courtesy of Lyrics007.com

Hour-Long Tohoku Tsunami Video

This Tohoku Tsunami video is a much extended version of an earlier shorter one I had seen last year and this one is incomprehensibly more fascinating and disturbing all at once. It is fascinating to see how the tsunami sequence unfolds from the very beginning and note particularly what happens at about the 24-minute mark.
Be sure to also check out Top 10 Most Dramatic Tohoku Tsunami Videos.

Quarter Hour of Tohoku Quake Footage

I have shared much video footage of the Tohoku Tsunami such as HERE but have not yet done so for the Tohoku Earthquake itself. Tonight I found this short National Geographic Channel short film featuring a montage of nothing but live video footage of the earthquake itself. In my view this is nothing short of remarkable. Be sure to also check out Top 10 Most Dramatic Tohoku Tsunami Videos.

Tale of Two Seiches

The other day I noted the presence online of footage of the effects of a seiche at the Devil's Hole spring in Death Valley National Park as a result of the M7.4 earthquake in Oaxaca, Mexico, on March 20, 2012. That seiche event can be seen in the video immediately below: 




This event reminded me that a significant sized earthquake not that much smaller but certainly much closer that occurred on Easter Sunday two years ago (April 4, 2010) known as the El Mayor-Cucapah Earthquake likewise generated a notable seiche at the same Death Valley location which can be viewed below:




NOTE: No pupfish were harmed in the filming of these seiches.

Arigato From Japan

A sincere THANK YOU from a tsunami-ravaged community in Japan.

Another Top Ten Most Dramatic Tohoku Tsunami Videos

Today is the one-year anniversary of the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. In commemoration of this tragic yet fascinating event I do hereby share with you my readers another batch of tsunami videos that have come to my attention that I view as being extraordinary. For additional dramatic videos of this event please visit my column Top Ten Most Dramatic Tohoku Tsunami Videos.



This video was shot by a boy safely perched on a bluff overlooking his town and shows the city of Minamisanriku being destroyed and about 9,000 of its residents killed right along with it.


This video features two young men laughing and giggling for much of the length of it which seems so very inappropriate but they are silences by the end of it as it becomes clear the event is not all fun and games. We also see the rare occurrence of tsunami breaking waves first outside the breakwater and then slamming into the nearby buildings and essentially destroying everything in sight except for two larger buildings.



This video features a rapidly-rising black-water tsunami tearing a port sector of a city apart and destroy it before the view of the camera. The sounds of the destruction are particularly harsh in this footage.



This footage features the initial bore making its way down a main thoroughfare as viewed from the roof of a three or four story building which is why the video was able to be taken as the tsunami soon is watching over the roofs of one-story buildings and much of the adjacent neighborhood rapidly disappears.



This video basically shows us destruction of the city of Otsuchi-cho in Iwate Prefecture. The camera person is upon on a hillside overlooking town. In view is the tsunami not so much rising rapidly and starting to dismantle and/or float structures away as in most images of this catastrophe but in this case acting as a battering ram and literally crashing into buildings at a great height and forward speed and essentially blowing them up and rapidly overrunning the city.



This video was shot by one young girl in a group of young girls on a hillside watching their town destroyed before them. They appear to be all alone in regards to adult supervision so it seems they realize they are watching the deaths of their parents and siblings and their entire town. Consequently, one hears much hauntingly mournful and pitiful sobbing and wailing from the girls.


This video is over half an hour long and shows the tsunami come and and go three times in a protected harbor milieu. The second to last time there is a backwash it appears briefly that one is about to see some exposed deeper offshore ocean bed before suddenly the ocean rushes right back into the harbor and over the breakwaters.



This video shows the tsunami entering a bay community and initially overtopping breakwaters across the bay. The camaera person is with other evacuated residents of a neighborhood seemingly-protected by a tsunami wall. There is even heard some giggling as people appear to to feel safe. Soon enough frothy black tsunami waves overtop the wall and in a matter of minutes the neighborhood is utterly destroyed as the residents watch.



This is the best aerial perspective footage yet showing the best sense of the large scale of tsunami waves and surges as viewed from a military helicopter following the tsunami as it rushes into a port city and inundates it. Also seen are other inundated shore facilities further up the coast within the same bay.



This video shows a rare glimpse of tsunami breaking waves approaching a rocky shoreline and then striking some breakwaters and overtopping them en route into a protected harbor that is suddenly naked to the angry ocean which proceeds to destroys boats in view of the camera.

Scripture of the Day - Amos

In remembrance of today being the one-year anniversary of the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami I am sharing this passage of scripture that brings to mind tsunami.

"Seek him that makes the Seven Stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night: that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the Earth: The Lord is his name. " ~ Amos 5:8