Preferred term

Tsunami

Description

In Japanese meaning “wave (running into the) harbour”. A train of gravity sea waves set up by a disturbance in the sea bed or water column, e.g., by a submarine earthquake, landslide, or explosion of a volcanic island. Tsunami amplitudes are typically small in the open ocean, but when running into shallow waters near the coast the tsunami wavefront sometimes piles up the waters 30 m or higher and sweeps up to several km into shallow land. The tsunami run-up height strongly depends on coastal profile and shape. Bays and cone-shaped river mouths increase run-up heights.

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