Here's a possibly stupid question

[CAP1]

ok.....the tsunami is being blamed on the earthquake. the earthquake pretty much just shakes the living poop out of things, as plates beneath the surface shift.
 i could understand it making things move but not in such magnitude. i thought i had recalled reading about severe earthquakes like this, with no tsunamis caused.

 so......in order for something to cause such a tsunami, would there not have to be a large release of something into the water? something that would displace it?

 i know it sounds stupid.......but i figured i'd ask anyway............

[Melvin]

In the case of the Indonesian tsunami, I believe there was a massive underwater landslide. Perhaps something similar here?

Perhaps an underwater fault shifted in such a way that one side rose and the other fell.

All just speculation on my part. Probably too early to tell.

[ToeTag]

The magnitude of this quake shifted the earths (the whole planet) axis by a few degrees and moved the whole island a few inches.  That is pretty significant. That's enough energy to cause a ripple that big.

[CAP1]

In the case of the Indonesian tsunami, I believe there was a massive underwater landslide. Perhaps something similar here?

Perhaps an underwater fault shifted in such a way that one side rose and the other fell.

All just speculation on my part. Probably too early to tell.

that is something i hadn;t thought of.........i'm just tryingt o understand how they're related,,,,,,,

[Mickey1992]

Go to Google news and search for "Japan moved 8 feet".

[Ultimate]

We were just talking about this in our Geography class.

Heres what supposibly happened, 2 Techtonik plates colided and one of them (nearest to japan) dropped an 'X' amount of feet or meeters. Because this drop of seabed was underwater the water wanting to equilize itself sent a massive wall of energy towards Japan as this wall of energy got closer the seabed kept getting higher and higher which turned that energy into a massive wall of water! Out at see that big amount of energy would just be small waves.

[mthrockmor]

Plate tectonics. Some plates are going past each other side to side, others are moving one over, one under. San Andreas is a side to side type. This one and the Indonesian one are one over, one under. Two plates pushing towards each other. The country of India and the Himalayas is one view of two plates colliding.

As one slides under, the other over it builds immense tension. When that tension is released, the 'over top' land buckles and moves forward and upward. With the Indonesian quake the land moved upwards of 30 feet. So what happened is the land suddenly moved upwards 30 feet, moved the water up 30 feet, which caused the massive wave 30 +/- foot waves.

I have heard early reports that this quake was a similar one, and as big as it was pretty likely. Underwater landslides cause tsunamis but generally not as large, over the entire Pacific. It will likely be a couple more weeks before they know the exact nature of this quake and resulting tsunami.

Boo

[CAP1]

Go to Google news and search for "Japan moved 8 feet".

wow.......

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-12/world/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth_1_tsunami-usgs-geophysicist-quake?_s=PM:WORLD

[ToeTag]

The magnitude of this quake shifted the earths (the whole planet) axis by a few degrees and moved the whole island a few inches.  That is pretty significant. That's enough energy to cause a ripple that big.

I'm either loosing ma mind.  Or fox news was wrong......  

WOW 8 feet.

BTW i'm probably just loosing my mind.

[Pigslilspaz]

We were just talking about this in our Geography class.

Heres what supposibly happened, 2 Techtonik plates colided and one of them (nearest to japan) dropped an 'X' amount of feet or meeters. Because this drop of seabed was underwater the water wanting to equilize itself sent a massive wall of energy towards Japan as this wall of energy got closer the seabed kept getting higher and higher which turned that energy into a massive wall of water! Out at see that big amount of energy would just be small waves.

(Image removed from quote.)

true, but those small waves are not small at all, same height but most of it is under water, wrecking havoc on marine life. Before you are able to "see" a tsunami as it approaches the shore, they can travel around approx. 200mph+. Otherwise if you went the speed that was shown in video clips of it hitting the land, there is no way that it could have reached California as quickly as it did. My friend was an idiot and surfed it at Santa Cruz, almost got killed.

[EskimoJoe]

Here ya go CAP :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apL6OaLEQwU