Exploring the tsunami seabed site
The Expedition Discovery Channel has funded an expedition of top scientists from around the world to explore the seabed site of the Asian tsunami — an unprecedented attempt to uncover and comprehend the causes and the fast-fading evidence of the 2004 tsunami. Unstoppable Wave will be telecast on December 25 (8.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m.).
An international team of 27 scientists, comprising the world's foremost scientific authorities, including seismologists, geophysicists, biologists, seabed visualisation experts and tsunami modellers spent 17 days at sea exploring the seafloor off the coast of Sumatra. One of the team's aims is to improve existing tsunami models to better predict the next tsunami. The model will be able to predict the scale of damage from tsunamis in other risk areas around the world.
The work of the scientific team on board The Performer and the powerful tsunami model can help governments minimise loss of life and property from tsunamis. For millions of years, the plate under the Indian Ocean moves east, pushing the Asian plate, travelling west. 200 years ago, the edges of these plates locked together and continued to push against each other, with immense force bending the upper plate down like a giant spring board.
The cliffs were thrust up by the rupture of the tectonic plates 17 miles below the ocean floor.
The sea-floor uplift from the 9.2 magnitude Great Sumatra earthquake caused the devastating December 26 tsunami. The earthquake lifted the entire chain of islands out of the water as high as 10 feet.
Twenty miles below the ocean surface, the forces reached breaking point.The western side of the mountain range on the edge of the plate was thrust up by as much as 40 ft.
At twice the speed of a bullet, the plates unzip over a distance of more than 750 miles lifting the sea-bed and the entire ocean above.
On the surface, the displaced water moved out as a series of giant ripples, causing the tsunami. .
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