Computer Models Help Predict Tsunami Risk

Stanford University scientists are using complex computational models to solve the puzzle of the devastating tsunami that stuck Japan in 2011 and predict where future tsunamis might occur.

Transcript

00:00:04 Stanford University we've been investigating the tohoku okie earthquake the earthquake that occurred in Japan back in March and caused the devastating tsunami the thing that we're particularly interested in is why did the catastrophic tsunami happen our models show that as the rupture propagates up the fault waves reflect off of the seafloor come

00:00:25 back down to the fault they serve to unclamp the fault release the pressure that's actually on it and allow it to slip if you take two bricks and you kind of put them together and you grab them if you push them together really really hard they're harder to slide if you kind of don't push them together quite as hard they slide more easily and so this is essentially what's

00:00:42 happening in the earth is that these waves go up and they come back down and they pull the fault apart this detailed computational modeling is allowing us to identify the conditions where the rupture will break all the way to the seafloor we're hoping to then go out and investigate other subduction zones worldwide and try to identify and make predictions about which subduction zones

00:01:02 might be more likely to have very large tsunamis if we don't properly understand natural hazards in various parts of the world and what are the important hazards to protect against these natural disasters are much more devastating and if we really want to begin to quantify and understand how big can those earthquakes be how big can the tsunamis be we have to be able to do these sorts

00:01:21 of simulations for more please visit us at stanford.edu