On this day in 1958, one of the most famous and powerful landslide tsunamis occurred in Lituya Bay, Alaska

This is a perfect example to illustrate the hazard of landslide tsunamis in bays

#OTD #Tsunami #Alaska #landslide

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Lituya Bay is about 12 km long, with the a glacier to the northeast and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. On July 9, 1958, a M7.8 earthquake triggered a rockslide of about 30 million m³. The generated wave reached the incredible altitude of 524 m on the opposite bank!

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The previous picture is from this report by Miller D.J. for the @USGS:

https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0354c/report.pdf

In Mader & Gittings (2002), we can read the testimony of the Swansons, who were on their boat:

"The glacier had risen in the air and moved forward so it was in sight."

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"[...] suddenly the glacier dropped back out of sight and there was a big wall of water going over the point. The wave started for us right after that and I was to busy to tell what else was happening up there."

Sadly, 5 people were killed by the wave.

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The damage are impressive. On the left picture (from the Miller report), the white parts (not the mountains...) close to the water indicate areas where the trees were destroyed by the wave.

The right picture shows a land of desolation, one month after the event...

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If you want to know more:

Mader, C. and Gittings, M. (2002), ‘Modeling the 1958 Lituya Bay mega-tsunami, II’,Science of Tsunami Hazards, 20(5), 241

Miller, D. J. (1960), ‘Giant waves in Lituya Bay, Alaska’,US Geological Survey Professional Paper, 354-C.

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And a recent numerical simulation:

González-Vida, J. M., Macías, J., ... and Arcas, D.: The Lituya Bay landslide-generated mega-tsunami – numerical simulation and sensitivity analysis, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 369–388, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-369-2019, 2019.

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My other landslide tsunami threads:

Nugaatsiaq 2017: https://twitter.com/Rollalex/status/1273170023129939968?s=20

La Fossa Volcano 1988: https://twitter.com/Rollalex/status/1252162941278879745?s=20

Lac-des-Seize-Îles 2014: https://twitter.com/Rollalex/status/1250422744560226305?s=20

Tafjord 1934: https://twitter.com/Rollalex/status/1247468175496826880?s=20

Enjoy !

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