Asimov on the Flood

What he is describing TC is a Tsunami (japaneese term literaly meaning harbour wave, though technicaly a soliton rather than a wave)....Basically at a destructive/covergent (sorry about terminology i have just had a nice night in with a bottle of Absolut) margin if there is a sudden slip on the fault line a region of the seafloor is rapidly displaced upwards, since fluids are incompressible (this is how brakes in cars work, by transmitting pressure through fluids) this displacement is duplicated on the surface. This distortion then spreads out as a soliton, not a wave per se as it has no wavelength...Out at sea a tsunami may (in some cases) have an amplitude of just .5 metres but a *wavelength* (not a true wavelength per se as previously noted) of around 300 metres (this is a sort of average, each tsunami is unique)....But as the soliton reaches the rapidly shallower waters of the shore line its *wavelength* decreases and its magnitude increases literaly looking like a wall of water appearing from nowhere....If Joe could pop by and enlighten us I for one would be interested to see if there is a boundary he thinks could be responsible for such an event in the locale or even if this hypothesis is contradicted by other geological evidence...Interesting at any rate.....[edited to fix C₂H₅.OH induced errors]

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[This message has been edited by joz, 06-01-2002]

You are using the wrong formulae bud, F = ma (or more accurately F is proportional to dP/dt) isn`t what you want...That said I can`t remember the right equations off hand, but they are a composite of Lord Raleighs work on solitons with application of Bernoullis work on potential flow....Sorry bud but its late night and I am half baked and thats all you are gonna get out of me for now....Hope that puts you on the right track...[added by edit: If you convert to SI instead of imperial units density of water is 1 kilogram per liter or 1 metric ton (1000 Kg) per m³]

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[This message has been edited by joz, 06-01-2002]