First destructive paleo-tsunami ever observed in Africa
First destructive paleo-tsunami ever observed in Africa
Scientific research funded by National Geographic and conducted by an international team of researchers has revealed the dramatic effects of an ancient tsunami that devastated the African coast of the Indian Ocean-East Africa a thousand years ago.
This study, published in the prestigious American journal Geology, included a large group of Italian researchers such as Vittorio Maselli, now at Dalhousie University, who led the research team, Davide Oppo (Louisiana State University), David Iacopini, (DISTAR, University of Naples Federico II) and Marco Taviani (CNR Institute of Marine Science).
By combining sedimentological, paleontological, archaeological data, radio carbon dating and numerical simulations, the researchers were able to show that about 1,000 years ago, a Swahili village that arose near the mouth of the Pangani River in Tanzania was washed away by tsunami waves that probably originated thousands of kilometers away (as such called teletsunamis), along the Sumatran plate margin. It could thus be a precursor to the catastrophic tsunami of December 26, 2004, which, however, had limited effects along the Tanzanian coast. This is the first finding from Tsunami deposit containing human remains discovered along the East African coast.
Numerical models presented in the research with the purpose of simulating the propagation of tsunami waves across the Indian Ocean suggest that the origin of the tsunami is to be related to earthquakes generated by major faults along the Sumatra-Andaman subduction zone and therefore propagated for thousands of kilometers before striking along the East African coast.
The research reinforce the idea that Teletsunamis can pose a serious risk to communities, and mega-cities that have developed along the East African coast. It is good to remember that tsunamis with wave heights of tens of meters can be caused either by submarine earthquakes, as was the case in 2004, or by underwater landslides, such as the recent tsunami in Palu, Indonesia, or volcanic eruptions, as is often the case in the Aeolian Islands.
"Quantifying tsunami risk, both by reconstructing past events and by refining monitoring of future events, particularly in relation to submarine landslides or distant seismic sources, will require additional and broader efforts by the scientific community. We are just at the beginning," declares Professor Iacopini.
Written by Redazione c/o COINOR: redazionenews@unina.it | redazionesocial@unina.it