Friday, September 28, 2007

How does a volcanic eruption cause a tsunami?

Here is my final version of how does a volcanic eruption cause a tsunami?

A volcanic eruption can cause a tsunami is a few different ways. The two types of eruptions are a normal volcanic eruption and the other is an underwater volcanic eruption.

A normal volcanic eruption or a land eruption is less likely to cause a tsunami because when it erupts there is no water above it to make a tsunami. A land eruption can cause a tsunami in three ways. The first is when the volcano erupts the original explosion and shaking can disturb the water and cause waves. The second is when the volcano erupts and all the hot lava and ash slides down the mountain side and can cause a landslide made of land and lava. The land then falls into the water and makes tsunami waves. The third way is that the eruption from volcano can cause some seismic activity which can be an earthquake. If these three combine it can crate a huge tsunami with massive power.

An underwater volcanic eruption is more likely to cause a tsunami because when it erupts there is water above it. An underwater volcanic eruption can create an earthquake, landslide and tsunami waves just like a normal volcanic eruption. The thing that makes an underwater volcanic eruption so dangerous is that when it erupts, the lava and power from the explosion pushes up and makes the water go sideways resulting in large waves.

Volcanic eruptions cause 4.6% of tsunamis, 9.1% of tsunami deaths and have killed 41,002 people. The two major volcanic generated tsunamis have been the Krakatau eruption in August 1883 which killed 36,000 people and Japanese Unzen eruption in May 1792 which killed 4,300 people.

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