The Natural History of Foster City, California
by James K. Sayre
a draft manuscript
12 May 2005
Tsunamis
A tsunami is a ocean tidal wave usually caused by an strong underseas earthquake. Since the recent devestating Indian Ocean tsunami that centered in western Indonesia, world awareness of the potential dangers of tsunamis has greatly increased.
The United States Geological Survey has made some hypothetical calculations about the possibility of potential inundation/flooding due to a tsunami created by an underseas earthquake off the coast of northern California or in Hawaii, Alaska or other parts of the Pacific [Ritter and Dupre]. A tsunami with a wave crest of twenty feet at the Golden Gate would result in an inundation that would cover the entire area of Foster City. Many other areas in the San Francisco Bay would also be inundated at the same time: low, coastal parts of San Francisco including Treasure Island and the pier areas, South San Francisco, Redwood City and Palo Alto. In the East Bay parts of Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, San Lorenzo, Hay ward and Fremont would be inundated. In the North Bay, parts of Marin County would also be inundated. Of course, there is a very low frequency of occurrence for these tsunami waves, calculated to be about once every two hundred years for a twenty foot wave crest at the Golden Gate [Ritter and Dupre].
End.
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