World Watch
LATITUDE
INDONESIA SEA CAVE PRESERVES TSUNAMI RECORD Digging in a sea cave — a cave created by waves and erosion — an international scientific team has unearthed the world’s most pristine record of tsunamis. The find in Indo- nesia is essentially a snapshot of 11 tsu- namis that occurred between 7,900 and 2,900 years ago. Anything more recent was washed away by the 2004 tsunami.
SHEDDING LIGHT ON TSUNAMIS Using fluorescent lights, Kerry Sieh and Charles Rubin of the Earth Observatory of Singapore look for charcoal and shells for radiocar- bon dating. -photo courtesy Earth Observatory of Singapore
The lead author of the project, Charles Rubin of the Earth Observatory of Singapore, says the findings show how difficult it is to predict tsunamis. He noted that between them, long periods can go by — yet major ones can also also reoccur within a few decades.
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