The recent landslide-generated tsunami in Tracy Arm of Southeast Alaska recalls the granddaddy of them all: the giant wave that scarred Lituya Bay in 1958.
The recent landslide-generated tsunami in Tracy Arm of Southeast Alaska recalls the granddaddy of them all: the giant wave that scarred Lituya Bay in 1958.
Lituya Bay, on the Pacific coast about 100 miles southeast of Yakutat and 40 miles west of Glacier Bay, is the site of the largest splash wave ever recorded.
In 1958, a magnitude 8.3 earthquake triggered a tremendous landslide into the ocean. The wave that followed reached 1,740 feet above sea level on a hill opposite the slide. The slide also triggered a wave more than 100 feet tall that raced down the bay.
Read more at: University of Alaska - Fairbanks
A mountainside stripped bare of vegetation rises from Lituya Bay in this photograph taken shortly after a giant wave in 1958. (Photo Credit: Don Miller)
