Lituya Bay
| Lituya Bay | ||
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 View over Lituya Bay |
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| Waters | Gulf of Alaska ( Pacific Ocean ) | |
| Land mass | North America | |
| Geographical location | 58 ° 39 ′ N , 137 ° 32 ′ W | |
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| width | 3.2 km | |
| length | approx. 15 km | |
| Islands | Cenotaph Island | |
| Tributaries | Lituya Glacier , Cascade Glacier , North Crillon Glacier | |
 View over the bay in the summer of 1958 after the Megatsunami |
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The Lituya Bay is a bay on the northern Pacific coast in Alaska .
It is located in Glacier Bay National Park in the south of the state. The bay has a length of around 15 kilometers and is around 3.2 kilometers wide. High mountain ranges form their inland border. Lituya Bay is fed by three major glaciers : the Lituya Glacier , the Cascade Glacier, and the North Crillon Glacier . The region around the bay is only extremely sparsely populated, partly because of the harsh climate; the inlet is occasionally used for fishing. Its connection to the Pacific is narrowed by a headland .
From a European perspective, Lituya Bay was discovered and mapped by Jean-François de La Pérouse in 1786 . Due to high tidal waves at the narrow entrance to the bay, he lost 21 men who were in two dinghies.
On July 9, 1958, a landslide occurred at the eastern end (located inland) as a result of an earthquake , in which 90 million tons of rock and ice fell into the bay. This enormous amount resulted in a megatsunami . The trees on the shore of the bay were washed away up to a height of 520 meters. The wave rolled over the headland between the bay and the ocean. Two fishermen who were in the bay at the time of the tsunami lost their lives, another fisherman and his son survived the event. Apart from the major damage to the environment, some of which are still visible today, there were no further losses, as the area around Lituya Bay is not populated. As early as the 19th and 20th centuries, minor landslides had occurred on the mountain slopes that generated waves over 30 meters high.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Don J. Miller: Giant waves in Lituya Bay, Alaska . Geological survey professional paper 354-C, Washington 1960, doi: 10.3133 / pp354C
- ↑ Geology.com Lituya Bay Megatsunami