Where and how often do tsunamis usually occur?

1 ANSWERS

1. Guest4013
   

   Major tsunamis occur about once per decade. Based on historical data, about 59% of the world's tsunamis have occurred in the Pacific Ocean, 25% in the Mediterranean Sea, 12% in the Atlantic Ocean, and 4% in the Indian Ocean.
   
   Tsunamis have been reported since ancient times. They have been documented extensively, especially in Japan and the Mediterranean areas. The first recorded tsunami occurred off the coast of Syria in 2000 B.C. Since 1900 that is the beginning of instrumentally located earthquakes, most tsunamis have been generated in Japan, Peru, Chile, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. However, the only regions that have generated remote-source tsunamis affecting the entire Pacific Basin are the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Aleutian Islands, the Gulf of Alaska, and the coast of South America. Hawaii, because of its location in the center of the Pacific Basin, has experienced tsunamis generated in all parts of the Pacific.
   
   The Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas both have small subduction zones, and have histories of locally destructive tsunamis. Only a few tsunamis have been generated in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In the Atlantic Ocean, there are no subduction zones at the edges of plate boundaries to spawn such waves except small subduction zones under the Caribbean and Scotia arcs. In the Indian Ocean, however, the Indo-Australian plate is being subducted beneath the Eurasian plate at its east margin. Therefore, most tsunamis generated in this area are propagated toward the southwest shores of Java and Sumatra, rather than into the Indian Ocean.

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