Talk:1958 Lituya Bay earthquake and megatsunami

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Hi, i am new to wikipedia posting. I would apreciate any feedback that anyone has on this article.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Coreymcgrath (talk • contribs) 06:02, 10 February 2009

Hi there, I was quite sure that there were other eyewitnesses to this event, another 2 boats in the bay, the crew on 1 boat survived while the other crew did not.--Arrows98 (talk) 14:00, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

1720 feet

This bit is a little dramatic, isn't it? The CN Tower is bigger than that. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:19, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The degree of drama probably is proportional to how close you were to the wave... 24.196.81.229 (talk) 19:18, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

~Slaying350~ It says in the first paragraph that the wave was 524 metres tall, 76 metres taller than the empire state building, but a wikipedia page about the empire state building claims it to be only 381 metres tall. If both measurements are correct, then the mega-tsunami was actually 143 metres taller than the empire state building. ~Slaying350~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slaying350 (talk • contribs) 07:55, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

1720 ft is the maximum height of water damage due to the wash. The actual crest of the wave would have been lower. The diagram is very misleading, as a wave of that height would wipe things out over 2000 ft with it's wash. BlueStraggler (talk) 16:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

According to http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol204/tsunami.htm the wave height was 60 m. I don't see any citations for the above very large figure. Where did it come from? Metricmike (talk) 18:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

This is stupid, there was no 500 meter wave. This might be the most ridiculus myth on the internet spread by popular science. Yes there was a big landslide into a small isolated bay that made the water rush into the opposit side squeezing the water several hundred meters up the nearby cliff. There is no way you can define that as a wavehight! One can clearly see from the pictures that yes the water shot very high up the nearby cliff but that was right next to where the mountainside came crashing down, further down the bay the water did not reach anywhere near hundreds of meter up the side. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.82.17.246 (talk) 12:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Not a myth

(Re above comments), the tsunami is not a myth or an exaggeration by over-excited parties. It is well documented by reliable sources, including the Geological Survey of Canada. [1] [2] [3] [4] Also covered in the BBC's Ten things you didn't know about Tsunamis. The wave was the world's largest at 1720 feet / 525m [5], higher than any building on earth. The stats are not refuted or in question in any sources that I have found. Span (talk) 23:26, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The wave height was repeated in a TV show that aired today (Memphis ComCast Ch.107 CURRENT TV) called "Dangerous Planet - World's Worst Tsunamis" (but listed in the channel guide as "Tsunamis: Killer Waves"), including an interview with eyewitness Howard Ulrich. It featured an animated rendering showing the wave height relative to the Empire State Building, and a scale simulation in a wave tank by Swiss researcher Dr. Hermann Fritz, who found that the air pocket carried under the bay by the landslide helped generate a larger-than-expected wave. His exact words, however, were that the water "ran up a half a kilometer" onto the opposite shore, which (to me) suggests he was NOT describing the running wave height. I don't know how to properly embed any of this info in the actual article, but I suspect information about the show can be found on IMDB. Steve8394 (talk) 03:47, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

The books I have linked specify that 1,720 feet was the actual wave height, not any kind of up-wash effect. Span (talk) 09:30, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, two of the sources directly contradict the megatsunami claim. None of the eyewitnesses estimate a greater crest height than 100 ft, and one of them (Ulrich) specifically states that the 1,800 ft figure is not the wave height, but how high the water splashed on the mountain sides. I suggest the article be renamed since it's obviously not dealing with anything remotely resembling a megatsunami event. Captain Adhoc (talk) 15:59, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Steve8394 and Adhoc. I just read the book that you(Spanglej) quoted on Google Books, named "Tsunami!". [6] That book specifically states that according to Ulrich, the wave height was 100 feet, and in another section 50-75 feet in height. The 1,800 figure is for damage from the wave inundation. Just like the the quote "forest was felled inland as far as 3,600 feet from the shore." Again, that does not make the wave 3,600 feet tall. I am going to remove the incorrect references and quote the sources correctly. A 100 foot high tsunami is a big wave, no reason to sensationalize it. If you can find a source that actually says that the wave height was 1720 feet, instead of the sources you quoted that clearly state 100 feet, then by all means revert. Bobsd (talk) 05:05, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

After attempting to clean up the article, I think I see where the confusion is coming from. After the rock slide, there was a hell of a splash, which cause massive destruction up to the often cited height of 1720 feet. However, after that initial "splash" or "wave" depending on your preferences, an actual wave sped across the entire bay, which witnesses have said was 100 + feet tall. Then there were subsequent oscillation waves that went back and forth with a 20 foot height. So if someone wants to take on more clarification, then please do so, but please be clear about which part of the event you are talking about when editing. Regards, Bobsd (talk) 05:45, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Coordinate error

The following coordinate fixes are needed for Lituya Bay

58.662700, -137.490745

—65.60.177.124 (talk) 00:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)