Bending a wave One of the many scientifically interesting things about the 2004 tsunami was what happened on the island of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka sits just across the Indian Ocean from Sumatra and was right in the path of the tsunami; the eastern sides of the island took a direct hit and there were thousands of casualties. But that wasn’t the only part of the island hit; the waves actually hit the backside of the island as well. Tsunami waves behave like other wave types in that they don’t travel in straight lines. In the case of Sri Lanka, as the waves approached the island, the parts of the wave exposed to the coastline slowed down while the parts in deeper water continued traveling at their same pace. This caused the wave energy to bend around the southern edge of the island, slamming into the portions that didn’t face Sumatra. On the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka, more than 1000 people were traveling on a loaded train between Colombo and Galle as the tsunami hit. That train was hit by waves that were over a meter taller than the top of the train. It was pushed inland, drowning many of the passengers as well as passers-by that climbed on top of the train hoping for safety. That disaster only occurred because of the way the tsunami wave bent around the island. The image showing Sri Lanka’s coastline actually captured the waves as they were moving. NASA’s Terra Satellite passed over the area just as the waves were approaching and the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) was able to detect the waves due to the changing angle of the ocean’s surface that also changed the angle that sunlight reflected back to the satellite. -JBB Image credits: https://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/project/misr/gallery/tsunami_sri_lanka.jpg thelongacre.net/2011/03/tsunami-where-you-at.html Read more: bom.gov.au/tsunami/info/ bit.ly/13Bw2bs news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4132247.stm sciencelearn.org.nz/Science-Stories/Tsunamis-and-Surf/Behaviour-of-waves Dear Readers, Most of our posts are not reaching your news feed due to fbs filtering system. If you wish to enjoy our posts more often, use the following for information on how to go about it: tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1VWMUJ0
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 14:54:00 +0000
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