| The Orphan Tsunami of 1700: Japanese Clues to a Parent Earthquake in North America Subjects: Paleoseismology -- Northwest Pacific; Paleoseismology -- Holocene; Subduction zones -- Northwest Pacific; Tsunamis -- Japan -- History -- 18th century -- Sources; A puzzling tsunami entered Japanese history in January 1700. Samurai, merchants, and villagers wrote of minor flooding and damage. Some noted having felt no earthquake; they wondered what had set off the waves but had no way of knowing that the tsunami was spawned during an earthquake along the coast of northwestern North America. This orphan tsunami would not be linked to its parent earthquake until the mid-twentieth century, through an extraordinary series of discoveries in both North America and Japan. Brian F. Atwater, Musumi-Rokkaku Satoko, Satake Kenji, Tsuji Yoshinobu, Ueda Kazue, and David K. Yamaguchi pooled their backgrounds in geology, geophysics, forestry, history, and language. |