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Science

Images of Ocean Floor Show Effects of Tsunami 357

Posted by Zonk from the chaos-theory-in-action dept.
Iphtashu Fitz writes "This week the UK's Royal Navy presented images taken by the survey ship HMS Scott of the damage to the floor of the Indian Ocean that triggered the tsunami two months ago. The Scott has a high-resolution multi-beam sonar that let it generate highly detailed images of the sea floor, some 200m to 5000m below sea level. An image showing the scale of the damage, and the full presentation made by the Commanding Officer of HMS Scott (38MB PowerPoint) are available. The presentation contains a number of images that have more detail than those available on the websites."
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Images of Ocean Floor Show Effects of Tsunami More

Images of Ocean Floor Show Effects of Tsunami

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  • Save the server - download through Dijjer (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) * on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:07PM (#11644055) Homepage Journal
    Download the Powerpoint through Dijjer [dijjer.org] by clicking here [dijjer.org].

  • Down already? (Score:4, Funny)

    by mg2 ( 823681 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:07PM (#11644057)
    The tsunami evidently took out the royal-navy's servers as well =\

  • Not very nice (Score:5, Funny)

    by MuckSavage ( 658302 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:08PM (#11644077)
    Linking to a 40meg powerpoint file. I can smell the server burning from here.
    • I wonder if they will think this is a DDoS? Man, I guess the UK Ministry of Defense is not prepared for cyber-war. I hope we aren't looking for them to be a coalition member. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2737885.stm/ [bbc.co.uk]

    • Re:Not very nice (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We once hosted an 80MB video that hit the national wires (yes, slashdot included) ... you wouldn't believe how much traffic you can serve if you know how to tune apache correctly. Two virtual servers running an on IBM x335 (P4 xeon, 1.5GB RAM), each VPS serving 750-1000 requests at a time ... Besides, large single files have nothing on, say, large (filesize) sites that hit Oprah. *That* is lots of fun.

  • Great Scott (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why in the world would some sadistic person put up a 37 MB power point presentation on slashdot. Damn you must hate the home office. Well it still downloading strong for me at about 87KBs

    Timothy

  • Oh, they'll like that! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:09PM (#11644085) Journal
    ...the full presentation made by the Commanding Officer of HMS Scott (38MB PowerPoint) are available.

    I hope the British readers here didn't have any urgent business with the UK Hydrographic Office site!

    • Does anyone ever have urgent business at a hydrographic office?
      • Does anyone ever have urgent business at a hydrographic office?

        Yes actually. I use it frequently to get tide predictions so I know where's safe (or will have good conditions) to go windsurfing. Good job I'm not going sailing tomorrow or I'd be proper pissed at not being able to get that data.

    • So what about.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      Southampton University, one of the other sites linked to and slashdotted off the face of the Earth? Ok, so the Royal Navy has special forces, nukes and really, really bad food. But the University has bad food, too, and the bar has more than just rum.

      The Joint Academic Network also pays per unit of data transferred over the transatlantic link. You've just bankrupted them!

      On a slightly more serious note, I think the fact that Slashdot can bring down some fairly beefy servers demonstrates that there is a f

  • Other Effects? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by StarWreck ( 695075 )
    I wonder what kind of effect this damage has had on things like Coral Reefs and deep ocean habitats surrounding black smokers?
  • The bastards!

    Just goes to show how crappy some of the IT projects in this country are when you can /. a military server...

  • Does this mean... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Undefined Parameter ( 726857 ) <.moc.oohay. .ta. .modeerf4leuf.> on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:10PM (#11644099)
    Fitz just linked a 38 megabyte file from the front page... does this mean that slashdot just declared war on the U.K.?

    ~UP

    • We Sank Their Battleship! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:31PM (#11644393)
      > Fitz just linked a 38 megabyte file from the front page... does this mean that slashdot just declared war on the U.K.?

      Slashdotters' guns were aimed and requests were comin' fast,
      The first link hit the website, they knew she couldn't last,
      That mighty Naval server room is just a memory,
      "Avenge the Bismarck" was the battle cry, sent over TCP.

      We found the freakin' powerpoint that's makin' such a fuss!
      We slashdotted the website 'cause the world depends on us!
      It hit the front page runnin, when we spun our browsers 'round,
      Yeah, we found the Royal Navy, and then we shut 'er down!

      With apologies to Johnny Horton's Sink the Bismarck, 1960 [allthelyrics.com], and those who served aboard both the Hood and the Bismarck.)

    • Yes, and here's a link to an article in the British magazine, New Scientist, which has one picture. Small article with a pic. [newscientist.com] (the sever may not be in britain though)

  • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by HTL2001 ( 836298 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:11PM (#11644118)
    the UK Royal Navy website was completly destroyed by the Slashdot Tsunami

  • ***ERROR! Ignorance tolerance overload! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:14PM (#11644156) Homepage
    damage to the floor of the Indian Ocean

    BZZZT! The surface of the earth cannot be damaged. Changed, yes, but not damaged. Unless you're suggesting that we need to get back to Pangaea somehow.

    Look, there are natural tectonic processes that have been going on for as long as the earth existed. Volcanoes and earthquakes are CONSTANTLY reshaping the surface of the earth. THIS IS NOT DAMAGE. This is normal behavior for the ecosystem.

    Next we'll be hearing that the predator/prey relationship needs to be banned because it damages animal populations, or that animals need to poop more because the coprophilic bacterial populations are abnormally low.
    • Just because it's damaged doesn't mean it's bad. I damage a golf ball every time I strike it with a club. Eventually that ball must be replaced. It's perfectly normal, but it's damage. I didn't see anywhere in the article (And not just because it was slashdotted before I got there) where they were talking about banning earthquakes.

      Earthquakes cause damage. That's all there is to it.
    • Correct- the surface of the Earth has not been damaged. However, a small subsection of the surface of the Earth has been damaged. If, somehow, the tectonic plates carrying North America and Siberia were induced to move towards each other, the pacific ocean would be completely obliterated (and the surface of the earth still wouldn't be damaged).
      • BZZZT! Wrong answer. It is ALTERED, but not DAMAGED. "Damage" implies some sort of breakage, or loss of function, or abnormal behavior. Plate tectonics are none of that.

        When an iceberg calves, the glacier is not damaged. If the glacier melts, the glacier isn't damaged. Gone, yes, but not damaged. When an avalanch occurs, the snowfield is not damaged. When it rains, the clouds are not damaged. When a river floods and changes course, its floodplain is not damaged. All of these are nature's normal behavior. O
    • You seem a bit touchy about the casual usage of the word "damage". How about "impact", is that better?
    • Dammit. I knew we should of signed the Kyoto Protocol.

    • Re:***ERROR! Ignorance tolerance overload! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Z4rd0Z ( 211373 ) <joseph at mammalia dot net> on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:32PM (#11644403) Homepage
      Dude, calm down. Maybe the choice of words wasn't the most scientific, but if you see the effects of a big earthquake or volcano, it's kind of hard not to see it as damage, whether it is a normal occurance or not. I remember as a kid when Mt. St. Helens blew and completely devastated the surroundings. Sure, over time it will be just a little bump in history, but for the people affected, it's damage. Is this a reason to start jumping up and down and calling people ignorant?
      • Sorry. You had me until your last sentence. "Damage to the floor of the Indian Ocean" is a COMPLETELY different concept from "damage to human beings." I would argue that earthquakes CAN NOT cause the former, but they DO cause the latter quite frequently.

        "Damage" includes in its connotation the notion that it is a bad thing. If a woodpecker pokes a hole in your house, is it damage? Absolutely. If you poke a hole in a tree, is it damage? Sure. If a woodpecker pokes a hole in the tree, is it damage? NOW you'v

    • Re:***ERROR! Ignorance tolerance overload! (Score:5, Funny)

      by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) * on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:33PM (#11644421)
      I applaud your pedantry, sir. Let us apply this to different areas.

      BZZZT! The surface of your car cannot be damaged. Changed, yes, but not damaged. Unless you're suggesting that we need to get back to car body perfection.

      Look, there are accidental collisions that have been going on for as long as cars have existed. Cars and trucks are CONSTANTLY reshaping the surface of other vehicles. THIS IS NOT DAMAGE. This is normal behavior for the ecosystem.

      • Re:***ERROR! Ignorance tolerance overload! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @03:31PM (#11645169) Homepage
        Bravo, sir! You have amused me, as well as intelligently disagreeing with me. Truly is it said, "If I can't have a good friend, at least let me have a worthy opponent."

        Now, to refute your refutation.

        The car is a human artifact. It exists solely because human beings created it. It has a purpose to its existence. When any circumstance makes it less fit for its purpose, we call the result "damage." I don't think you can disagree that this is the generally accepted view of things.

        On the other hand, if I take my dented car to an auto-body shop, an old-school one where they still fix things instead of ordering replacement panels, I will find that they dent the car further, and drill holes in it, and scrape it with abrasives. Are these damage? I would suggest not, since these, in the end, make the car more fit for its intended purpose.

        (I think I have here the beginnings of a Theory of Intelligent Design for cars.)

        "Damage to an ecosystem" must not be semantically entwined with "changes to the ecosystem." Human ecological catastrophes must not be confused with natural ecological changes. Otherwise you will get anti-environmentalists excusing human damage to ecosystems as one more example of nature red in claw and fang, humans as the ultimate predator and shaper of their environments. Beaver dams changing the course of a stream? Normal. Humans building a hydroelectric dam that floods hundreds of square miles? Hey, why not? Beavers do it, right?

        Anyway - that's my point (one of them, at least). Start calling natural events damaging...and you've handed the anti-environmentalists a get-out-of-jail-free card. "Sure, we've eradicated 43 species this year - but giant meteors from space have historically done 1,000 times more damage! So it's OK!"

    • Re:***ERROR! Ignorance tolerance overload! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Metapsyborg ( 754855 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:37PM (#11644469)
      BZZZT! The surface of the earth cannot be damaged. Changed, yes, but not damaged. Unless you're suggesting that we need to get back to Pangaea somehow.

      Look, there are natural tectonic processes that have been going on for as long as the earth existed. Volcanoes and earthquakes are CONSTANTLY reshaping the surface of the earth. THIS IS NOT DAMAGE. This is normal behavior for the ecosystem.

      Come on now, you're not even attempting to understand what they are talking about. I don't know how this was modded insightful, but it is damage my friend. Animals died, habitats were destroyed, plant life uprooted/moved/destroyed, rare/endangered species killed (not that I know for a fact, can't see the webpage). This is damage. It doesn't matter that these animals would die eventually anyway, it doesn't matter that in 200,000 years that piece of ocean floor won't exist anymore.

      Your cocky presumptiousness does not bely intelligence, it belies a refusal to understand something. Damaged, changed, modified, whatever it all means the same thing. And gee, the two "ridiculous" examples you list probably already happen somewhere in the world! People hunt to keep animal populations down (those bastard deer come to mind); I'm sure somewhere in the world predators are being kept away from herbavors to "protect" the herbavors from being "damaged". Hmm, maybe we should just ban the word "damaged", because obviously every thing that happens in the universe is due to nature. Therefore everything that happens would have happened eventually anyway, and it can not possibly be considered damage because it is "all in the natural order of things."

      Why don't you use your self-proclaimed knowledge for something useful, like understanding that words can mean multiple things and not everything people write about is a semantic argument?

      • Your first logical error occurs in the first word of your third sentenct. "The floor of the Indian Ocean" is not "Animals, habitats, and plants."

        I won't disagree that changes to the environment can be harmful to species living in the environment. That would be silly. I WILL disagree that natural geological processes acting on the geological environment damage the geological environment, any more than spitting damages your mouth, or sniffling damages your nose.

        Damaged, changed, modified, whatever it all m
    • You seem to be some right wing extremeist...

      its obvious that George Bush lied and all the damage because of the tsunami is his fault.
    • That's a silly quibble. This cause of the damage may be natural, but you still have natural structures destroyed, habitats disrupted, etc. Presumably natural forces will repair the damage eventually, but calling it anything except "damage" is just dumb.

      I have some issues with your other statements. but I don't feel like a nitpick war. Instead, I'll just address what I perceive to be your basic argument. It's a common one: "Change and evolution are a part of nature. Nature is capable of fixing itself. Let'

    • It's still "damage" (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dustmite ( 667870 )

      I wouldn't say it's not damage, I would rather say that it's this type of damage is just a normal part of the Earth's processes. It's still damage, although I understand your point that that is probably too abstract for Joe Public to grasp by him/herself, and so the term is misleading to the public, who only think of damage in purely negative terms.

      Next we'll be hearing that the predator/prey relationship needs to be banned because it damages animal populations

      Similar but true: For a long time people tho

  • tsunami WAS the effect, not the cause (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:14PM (#11644157)
    Images of Ocean Floor Show Effects of Tsunami

    I think people really really like saying "tsunami". Too bad most don't even pronounce it the right way.

    The floor was not the effect of the tsunami, it was the effect of the earthquake, of which the tsunami was also an effect.

    See, I like saying "tsunami" too!

    tsunami. tsunami. tsunami.

  • Sheer unbridled stupidity (Score:4, Interesting)

    by KrackHouse ( 628313 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:15PM (#11644164) Homepage
    For god's sake did anybody running this site really think that a direct link to a 38 meg ppt wouldn't bring down that server?

    Can someone please reply with sites that are like slashdot but not run by monkeys?

  • Wow... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MetaPhyzx ( 212830 )
    Thinking about it scientifically, along with the terrible loss of life in this event is incredible.

    To me, this is a huge reminder that the planet in itself is capable of incalculable (in terms of lives affected) violence. And also that there will be in due time, something comparable. Or worse.

    And to think about the squabbles we have, our territorial ambitions, our day to day lives, it really means nothing in the face of these kinds of forces.

    • Like Keanu said in the critically applauded masterpiece "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure"

      "All we are, is dust in the wind...dude"

  • 38 Mb File Brings Limey Navy to a Stop (Score:4, Funny)

    by CygnusXII ( 324675 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:18PM (#11644200)
    NEWS FLASH
    British Royal Naval Communications brought to a halt today. Somehow a Naval Report on the latest Tsunami damage was linked to Popular IT Community Web Site SlashDot.org. The resulting Bandwith usage rates shot to am alarming rate, and crippled Data Communications to Royal Naval Forces, and forced the Royal Navy to respond, by issuing the following Statement. "Koh! Blimey! We've been knackered by the BOFHs'!"

  • Not the tsunami... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sabaki ( 531686 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:23PM (#11644283)
    Not only were the undersea landslides not the result of the tsunami -- they were the result of the causal earthquake -- but there's evidence to show that undersea landslides can be a major cause of tsunami. So these might help explain why the tsunami was/were so devastating.

  • Article text (Score:5, Informative)

    by Swamii ( 594522 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:24PM (#11644288) Homepage
    A 40 MB file on the front page. Way to go douchebags, thanks for taking our server out. Here's the text of the article:

    The Royal Navy's survey ship HMS Scott has collected unique images of the Indian Ocean seabed in the vicinity of the devastating tsunami earthquake epicentre.

    The work, announced last month by the Ministry of Defence, is being carried out in order to further the understanding of earthquakes and assist prediction of such events in the future. It will be of considerable benefit to the Asia region as a whole and potentially give a global perspective.

    HMS Scott's tasking is a non-military role that will provide bathymetric ( measuring the depth of water ) and geological assessment of the Asian earthquake epicentre and extended fracture zone. To assist with this, scientists from the Southampton Oceanography Centre and the British Geological Survey have embarked in the ship.

    The depth of water in the vicinity of the epicentre varies between 200m to 5000m which is well within HMS Scott's capability using her high-resolution multi-beam sonar.

    The epicentre lies within the Indonesian Exclusive Economic Zone, and the survey itself follows discussions with the Indonesian Government about HMS Scott's potential value in furthering the understanding of the earthquake and future risk prediction. The survey falls under the definition of Marine Scientific Research under United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

    Survey imagesHMS Scott's survey will provide the 'base map' for future extensive research into the process of how earthquakes work; this is a crucial moment to conduct such research.

    While HMS Scott is not directly involved in the humanitarian relief effort, her survey work in the vicinity of the epicentre is of significance to the scientific community in furthering the understanding of the tsunami.

    HMS Scott deployed from the UK in November 2004 in order to undertake a programme of work in the North Atlantic, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean and is scheduled to return to the UK in June 2005.

  • 1500m??? (Score:5, Informative)

    by justforaday ( 560408 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:26PM (#11644313)
    From TF(/.d)A:
    The collision has forced up spectacular large thrust ridges up to 1500 m high...

    New ridges nearly a mile high?!? Well, that certainly explains the little wave it made...

  • this is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:27PM (#11644334)
    This is getting ridiculous. Why does Slashdot continue to post stories with direct links to massive files that are hosted on sites that will obviously be killed instantly, once users start clicking the link? Would it be too much to ask to begin mirroring the files, or provide a torrent?

    These stories that reference some outside source are useless half of the time, because the source instantly becomes unavailable for a few hours until some new story comes up. It's getting really old.

  • Cause and Effect (Score:5, Insightful)

    by irhtfp ( 581712 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:27PM (#11644340)
    It should be pointed out that the headline of this /. story is misleading. (Yeah, I know, what else is new?)

    Images of Ocean Floor Show Effects of Tsunami

    The damage to the ocean floor was a result of the cause of the tsunami - not the effect thereof. Tsunamis do not damage the ocean floor until they get into very shallow water (i.e. the coastline).

  • Major slip (Score:5, Informative)

    by JJ ( 29711 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:28PM (#11644350) Homepage Journal
    The India tectonic plate, one of the most mobile in recent geologic time, slipped underneath the southeast asia one causing a major uplifting, which caused the tsunami. A relatively unusual geologic cause of a tsunami. Original reports where that some areas fell by 2000 ft, which would be quite remarkable and a bit of an exageration.

  • NEWSFLASH!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:36PM (#11644461) Journal
    A tsunami has been detected approaching the coasts of Greenland and Iceland from the East. Geologists suspect this tsunami is due to the plunging of the entire uk.gov webserver complex into the atlantic ocean and a very high velocity.

    Did anyone happen to get the entire presentation and have a torrent up somewhere?
  • If anyone managed to grab the ppt, please either post a torrent or let me have it and I will.
  • These are geological changes, not Grandma's china getting broken.
    • These are geological changes, not Grandma's china getting broken.

      Heh.. I was going to make the same comment but you got it first.

      When a tree grows out of the ground, it pushes soil aside -- would you then describe the ground as "damaged?" Is the moon damaged because it has craters?

      The word "damage" is only meaningful in the context of human activities. As you succinctly stated, this is change, not damage.

  • Follow up story (Score:5, Funny)

    by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:39PM (#11644496) Homepage
    Today the British Navy abandoned the gulf and turned its ships and nuclear submarines onto the Slashdot editing team. An initial force of Special Boat Service (SBS) forces was expected to take out the chain of command before a period of continual bombardment by artillery, missle and aircraft.

    A spokesman from the British Navy said "right that's it, we've left the buggers alone since 1812 but that does it."

    In related news Slashdot is being re-hosted from Camp Delta, along with any remaining members of the editing team.

    • I'd like to see them get through the Great Lakes to bomb Michigan. Of course, they would have to go through the locks at Niagara to get into Lakes Michigan or Huron, which would require complicity on the part of the US and Canadian governments. The British Navy of course would also need to send icebreakers this time of year as well.

  • In related news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @03:05PM (#11644857) Homepage Journal
    Recent images of the ocean floor in the tsunami area found traces of an ancient city, temptativelly named "R'lyeh".

    Also, a big monster with a head like an squid is walking from there to Tokio. Press there don't know if call it Godzilla, or if they must call Godzilla to save them.

  • I felt a great disturbance in the Force... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gorimek ( 61128 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @03:10PM (#11644917) Homepage
    ...as if millions of slashdotters all posted the same joke about the Royal Navy's web server going down. I fear something terrible has happened.

  • NOAA Bulletins from the Scott (Score:5, Informative)

    by X_Bones ( 93097 ) <danorz13&yahoo,com> on Friday February 11, 2005 @03:15PM (#11644987) Homepage Journal
    More information and pretty pictures available from NOAA's Web site: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami/indo20041226/hms_ scott.htm [noaa.gov]

  • Powerpoint mirror (Score:3, Informative)

    by smoker2 ( 750216 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @03:59PM (#11645514) Homepage Journal
    For those without a torrent client there is a mirror of the powerpoint file here [headru.sh].

  • It was three times larger than first thought! (Score:5, Informative)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @04:06PM (#11645585) Homepage Journal
    LiveScience [livescience.com] report that a new analysis of the December earthquake that caused disastrous tsunami waves to strike Asia and Africa. The report finds it was three times more powerful than earlier measurements suggested. This would make it the second largest earthquake ever instrumentally recorded...

    From AQFL [aqfl.net].

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