Earth Magazine: Giant Quakes Sloshed Fjords Half a World Away

On March 11, 2011, Norwegian citizens living along fjord coastlines were perplexed as rare waves sloshed along local docks and seawalls. The waves almost seemed like tsunami waves. Naturally, the residents grabbed their cell phones to document.

The video and photo coverage of the rare waves would eventually help scientists identify and describe the phenomenon: seismically generated water waves called seiches, which had been set in motion by the massive Tohoku earthquake half a world away. EARTH Magazine explores how the energy released by a ruptured fault off the eastern coast of Japan oscillated the water in Norwegian fjords in a December news story: http://bit.ly/1bik2am.

Celebrate the end of 2013 with EARTH Magazine by reading commentary about notable geoscience stories from past year, a geoscientist’s gift guide, and visit the “Bay of Kotor: Europe’s Southernmost Fjord” in the December EARTH Magazine available at the digital newsstand at: www.earthmagazine.org/digital.