Images of quake seabed released

Images of quake seabed released

BRITAIN: A British Navy survey ship on Wednesday released the
first images of the seabed at the epicenter of last year's killer
earthquake and tsunami that reveal the massive canyons and ridges
left by the collision of two of the earth's plates.

The Royal Navy's HMS Scott has been taking underwater sonar
readings off the Indonesian island of Sumatra to try to find out
how the Dec. 26 earthquake unfolded and then produced the giant
waves that have killed nearly 300,000 people in 11 countries.

The ship's officers presented the readings in the form of
colored digital mapping at the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office
in Taunton, Somerset, southwest England, indicating a large
landslide some 100 meters high by two kilometers in length.

HMS Scott's Commanding Officer Steve Malcolm said initial
assessments by scientists indicate two of the earth's tectonic
plates clashed together, causing a ridge on the seabed which
forced sea water to travel upwards to form the devastating
tsunami.

It must have occurred "like the rumpling up of a carpet," he
said.

He said he hoped the survey would give a warning as to when
this could happen again "with the aim of removing the likelihood
of such a terrible loss of life".

HMS Scott's survey will provide the "base map" for future
extensive research into the process of how earthquakes work and
how they produce tsunamis. --AFP