SECOND
TSUNAMI SYMPOSIUM REVIEW
Dr. Laura
S. L. Kong
Director, International
Tsunami Information Center (ITIC)
(From ITIC Tsunami
Newsletter)
Over 50 international
scientists gathered at The Second Tsunami Symposium sponsored
by The Tsunami Society to hear about recent tsunami research.
Laboratory tsunami landslide generators developed in Switzerland
in the last few years now enable scientists to measure critical
tsunami generation and propagation characteristics, and these
studies have provided the inputs to theoretical models which
have successfully replicated tsunami landslide historical observations.
Over the last decade, scientists at the U. S. Los Alamos National
Laboratory and Science Applications International Corporation
have developed a compressible Eulerian hydrodynamic code utilizing
adaptive mesh refinement techniques to solve the tsunami generation,
propagation, and inundation problem in a single, large, three-dimensional,
computer simulation using appropriate grid resolutions and realistic
equations to describe the Earth's atmosphere, ocean, and crust.
Symposium scientists presented results from models run for the
1958 Lituya Bay, Alaska landslide and tsunami, and tsunamis generated
by meteorite or asteroid impacts (http://www.spacedaily.com/news/earthquake-02a.html),
that showed remarkable realism and detail.
The possible role of
gas hydrates in contributing to slope instability and inducing
tsunami generation generated much discussion during the all-day
workshop. In addition, a number of papers on tsunami hazards
and vulnerability, and tsunami historical events were presented,
including studies in Greece, eastern Canada, Indonesia, Cyprus,
Aruba, Peru, and the U.S. (Alaska, Hawaii).
Symposium Program and
abstracts and recent Science of Tsunami Hazards journals can
be accessed online at http://www.sthjournal.org.
The Tsunami Society
promotes the awareness and mitigation of tsunami hazards by sponsorship
of workshops, meetings and symposia and by the dissemination
of knowledge about tsunamis to scientists, officials and the
public in part through its international electronic refereed
journal. The Society provides a focus for discussion and interactions
among its members, government agencies, and the public. During
the Tsunami Symposium, The Tsunami Society elected a new slate
of officers who will hold office until the Third Tsunami Symposium
planned for May 24-26, 2005 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The Society also established
an Ad Hoc Committee on Mega-Tsunamis to evaluate currently available
data and research efforts in response to recent media attention
that erroneously suggested that volcano island flank failures
would generate ocean-wide tsunamis capable of devastating densely-populated
coastlines at locations distant from the source (e.g., across
the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans). The Committee, consisting of
George Curtis (Chair), Dr. Eddie Bernard, Dr. Laura Kong, Dr.
Charles Mader, Dr. Tad Murty, and Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis,
will develop a scientifically-based position paper on the occurrences
of mega-tsunamis in the past, and the likelihood for such events
in the future.
Dr. Tad Murty, Tsunami
Society President, presented Dr.George Pararas- Carayannis with
The Tsunami Society Award recognizing his outstanding and original
contributions to the science of tsunami hazards. Now retired,
but still active, Pararas-Carayannis is a former Director of
the International Tsunami Information Center and co-founder and
officer of the Tsunami Society. The Tsunami Society also presented
an Award to Tom Sokolowski, current Geophysicist-in-Charge at
the U.S. West Coast / Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, for his
leadership in the development and evaluation of techniques for
real-time prediction of far-field tsunami amplitudes and hazard
evaluation.