Journal article
Medieval forewarning of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Thailand
K Jankaew, BF Atwater, Y Sawai, M Choowong, T Charoentitirat, ME Martin, A Prendergast
Nature | NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP | Published : 2008
DOI: 10.1038/nature07373
Abstract
Recent centuries provide no precedent for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, either on the coasts it devastated or within its source area. The tsunami claimed nearly all of its victims on shores that had gone 200 years or more without a tsunami disaster. The associated earthquake of magnitude 9.2 defied a Sumatra-Andaman catalogue that contains no nineteenth-century or twentieth-century earthquake larger than magnitude 7.9 (ref. 2). The tsunami and the earthquake together resulted from a fault rupture 1,500 km long that expended centuries' worth of plate convergence. Here, using sedimentary evidence for tsunamis, we identify probable precedents for the 2004 tsunami at a grassy beach-ridge plain ..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We thank B. Korsakun for logistical help; C. Tongjeen for permission for digging; V. Chutakositkanon, V. Jittanoon, T. Machado, T. Napradit, S. Pailoplee, S. Phantuwongraj, N. Rajeshwara Rao, S. Srinivasalu, P. Surakiatchai and A. Weerahong for contributions to Phra Thong field and laboratory work; Y. Fujii for providing bathymetric data; and S. Bondevik, M. Cisternas, H. Kelsey, A. Meltzner, K. Sieh, M. Tuttle and J. Woodruff for reviews. This report evolved from surveys supported by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (Thailand), the National Science Foundation (USA), and the US Agency for International Development ( participants are listed in Supplementary Table 3). Additional funding was provided by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (to Y.S.), the Thailand Research Fund (to M.C.), and Chulalongkorn University ( through P. Charusiri).