The latest studies of the effects of the massive, and multiple, tsunamis that hit Japan’s northeastern Pacific Coast, shows record seabed shift, and just how far a 140 ton rock can travel.
Researchers from the Chiba Institute of Technology and Tsukuba University, discovered that a 140 ton boulder was moved 470 meters (1,541 feet) by the massive waves. The boulder was part of a breakwater along the coast line of Sanriku region.
Regarding the sea bed, the Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology compared seabed maps made in 1999 and 2004, to those made only days after the March quake. Going by those maps, the sea bed actually slipped 50 meters (164 feet), that’s a record recorded slip! Previously it was estimated the sea bed shifted 24 meters (79 feet). It was also discovered that the sea bed rose 10 meters (33 feet), equal to a 16 story building!