The slip patch (where the two tectonic plates slip past each other) of the earthquake did not reach the sea floor, so it didn't generate a big tsunami [0]. If the purple colors in the finite fault map (indicating >2 m slip) reached the trench (the top of the first figure, or the red line in the second), then the earthquake would have displaced much more seawater.
These finite fault maps are made using automated processing of the seismic waves from seismographs around the globe. It's pretty amazing to me that the resolution is so good, from what are not that different than sound waves. These tend to be pretty accurate, not just precise, and are validated from additional studies using different datasets over the subsequent years.
You see, they're all connected to the same body of water. And if the tsunami was directional towards the Japanese coast it would've caused issues there.
Tsunamis from the 1964 Alaska earthquake (M9.2) killed 12 people in California and caused damage in Japan and Hawaii. Tsunamis can travel for a very long distance in open ocean.
Alaska is pretty close to Asia, especially if you look at the great circle distance.
Cargo planes from China, Korea, and Japan normally refuel in Anchorage, and before the extended range of modern passenger jets, most passenger planes also had a refueling stop there.
In 1983, KAL Flight 007, a Boeing 747 passenger airliner en route from New York to Seoul, was shot down by the Soviet Union after departing Anchorage and inadvertently entering Soviet airspace.
I only know this because I clicked on some more stuff after looking at that but the Fukushima tsunami caused a fair amount of damage in the Santa Cruz, CA harbor both to docks and boats. Apparently the waves can get magnified when they go into a narrow channel or harbor. Another thing I only learned today reading the comments of that video is that tsunami literally means harbor wave in Japanese.
There is old joke that if you use metric when announcing a 50mm tsunami, half of Americans will run for the hills. "~20cm" could mean half a foot or 20 hundred meters depending on how much you remember from highschool. Many agencies have policies on how and where metric should be used in public announcements.
Yes, but how many of you reflect over the nomenclature? How many of you know the actual diameter of a "twenty-two" (even if spelled out as .22)? People don't often think about the meaning behind colloquialisms.
American public schools have been using metric for decades. Science classes in American public schools use metric exclusively since the 80s at least. When you meet an American who makes a big deal out of not knowing what a meter is, 9 times out of 10 they're putting on a performative patriotic display mean to get a rise out of you. That, or they're quite elderly.
Incidentally, .22 LR is nominally but not actually 0.22 inches in diameter. It's very slightly bigger than that. In the domain of ammunition, there is often a mismatch between actual diameter and nominal diameter.
With calibers there is a difference between american .22 and european .22. As I understand it, the american measurement is slightly larger as it includes a bit of the rifling groves whereas the European standard was only the bullet width. So the same bullet measures slightly larger on the american scale. Or I might have that backwards, one of the two is different.
From what I understand, ".22 LR" is nominally .22 inches, actually is .223 inches, and is labeled as 5.6x15mmR in Europe while actually being something like 5.66mm (the 'x15' is the length of the case in millimeters, and the R means rimmed.) They are called different things and both are not quite their nominal sizes, but I think they're interchangeable in practice.
Seeing the unusual strength of this one, it'll be interesting to see if there's a "quake-walk" around the 'ring of fire' like the clockwise one a few years back.
Because the magnitude is no longer defined using the original Richter scale. Earthquake magnitudes are now defined using a similar scale called the moment magnitude scale.
Also watts are an SI unit of power, whereas Richters are not a unit of earthquake. It's just the name for the scale itself.
Pretty interesting, especially when he shows the buoys on the east cost that registered the quake & the plate overlay to show why they felt the quake (because they were on the the other edge of the plate).
Kind of amazing he he managed to put up a 1hr+ video so soon after the quake, ~1.5 hours or so.
Also a bit confusing why the comment posting this video is (as of my comment) getting downvoted? Is this youtuber not considered credible on the topic?
