(Geology) Tsunami Threat in California Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

(Geology) Tsunami Threat in California - Essay ExampleIn the history of Tsunami, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami was one of the deadliest disasters that killed over 230,000 mess in 14 countries near the Indian Ocean. Although researchers have identified the causes and other characteristics of this natural disaster, many facts roughly Tsunami still remain undiscovered. This paper will discuss the Tsunami threat in California in detail.geologic surveys have identified that most of the faults in the United States, specifically in California, are strike steal faults. In addition, the presence of autumn slip faults also has been discovered in California (State of California, 1992). In geology, a fault indicates a discontinuity in a large volume of rock and this discontinuity or planar disruption often causes notable displacements during the times of an earth movement. Strike slip faults can be simply delineate as a motion which is parallel to the strike of the fault and sometimes it i s referred to as side by side motion.Strike slip faults characterized with left lateral motion are called sinistral faults while those resemble a right lateral motion fall under the category of dextral faults. In contrast, dip slip faults represent fractures where the blocks are shifted almost vertically. In the case of dip slip faults, a down motion is termed as normal and an upward motion is known as tip over. A fault that includes the components of two strike slip and dip slip is commonly referred to as an oblique slip fault. It has been identified that both the strike slip faults and dip slip faults may lead to earthquakes and thereby tsunamis. Earthquakes associated with strike slip faults and reverse slip faults can have the potential to cause powerful tsunamis because most of such earthquakes generally relieve oneself with a magnitude of 8 or more and it has been observed that energy released during an earthquake is proportional to the