Buried by 1,700 Feet of Water; The Alaskan Megatsunami

In the evening of July 9th, 1958, a large earthquake struck a remote section of Alaska. The quake subsequently triggered a voluminous landslide in Lituya Bay, leading to the creation of a 1,720 foot or 524 meter tall tsunami. This represented the tallest tsunami wave ever recorded, and went on to destroy millions of trees over a wide swath of forest. Yet, this megatsunami was not an isolated event as several other large tsunamis have occurred at the very same bay in the last 250 years.

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Graphics of eruption dates are courtesy of the Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian Institute. https://volcano.si.edu/

Google Earth imagery used in this video: ©Google & Data Providers

Thumbnail Photo Credit: stockvault.net, Unsplash, CC0 1.0 UPDD

Citations:
[1] https://www.nps.gov/articles/aps-18-1...
[2] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ima...
[3] https://mrdata.usgs.gov/sim3340/
[4] Higman, B., Shugar, D.H., Stark, C.P. et al. The 2015 landslide and tsunami in Taan Fiord, Alaska. Sci Rep 8, 12993 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-30..., CC BY 4.0
[5] D. Miller, “Giant Waves in Lituya Bay Alaska”, USGS, Geological Survey Professional Paper 354-C

0:00 A Calm Day in 1958
0:18 Magnitude 7.8 Earthquake
0:37 A Megatsunami Forms
1:50 Cause of the Tsunami
3:09 Previous Megatsunamis
4:00 Taan Fiord Megatsunami

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• #quake