definitionand scope- universityof washington earthand（华盛顿earthand definitionand范围——大学）（10页）.docVIP

I. Definition and Scope Subaerial tsunami deposits are those geologic materials (including grain sizes from boulders to mud) deposited above mean sea level during the passage of a tsunami. The material may come from offshore, or may be reworked material from onshore. Modern tsunami deposits have been used to help establish the landward limit of inundation (Figure 1) and the direction water flowed over an area, but tsunami deposits are most often used to infer the passage of prehistoric tsunamis. Prehistoric tsunamis have been identified solely on the basis of their deposits in the Pacific Northwest (Atwater and Moore, 1992; Benson et al., 1997), Kamchatka (Pinegina and Bourgeois, 2001; Pinegina et al., 2003), Japan (Nanayama et al., 2003), the North Sea (Dawson et al., 1988), and Hawaii (Moore, 2000; Moore et al., 1994), among others. These studies have helped scientists and disaster managers understand the tsunami risk associated with not only these areas, but also other areas in the same ocean basin. In regions where tsunamis are infrequent, paleotsunami deposits may represent the only available means of determining the magnitude and frequency of tsunamis (and associated seismic events). To be an effective tool for hazard planning, however, we must understand how to recognize and interpret paleotsunami deposits. Although attempts to “codify” the criteria for paleotsunami deposit recognition have been made (e.g. Chagué-Goff and Goff, 1999; Nanayama et al., 2000; Tuttle et al., 2004), there remains no clear means of distinguishing tsunami deposits from the deposits of other coastal phenomena such as storms. This difficulty has led to vigorous debate on the origin of several published paleotsunami deposits (e.g. Bryant et al., 1992; Hearty, 1997; Moore and Moore, 1984). Another complication in interpreting paleotsunami deposits is the lack of information on what changes in lateral extent, thickness, and internal structure a tsunami deposit undergoes from depos