Abstract
IN connection with the great explosion at Krakatão at 10 a.m. on August 27, 1883, a great wave was generated, which at Batavia, 100 miles distant, reached a height of 7½ feet above the ordinary sea-level. It was followed by a fairly regular series of fourteen waves, at intervals of about two hours, gradually diminishing in height. Captain Wharton, who writes this part of the Royal Society Report, is much puzzled by the long period. He says:— “If the wave was caused by any sudden displacement of the water, as by the falling of large masses of ejected matter and huge fragments of the missing portion of Krakatão, or by the violent rush of steam from a submarine vent through the water, it is hardly to be conceived that two hours would elapse before the following wave, the second of the series, started after it…. If, however, upheaval of the bottom of the sea, more or less gradual, and lasting for about an hour, took place, we should have a steady long wave flowing away from the upheaved area, which as it approached the shore would be piled up considerably above its normal height. Thus these waves of long period would be set up…. The water would flow back on the motion ceasing.”
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MCCONNEL, J. The Period of the Long Sea-Waves of Krakatão. Nature 41, 392 (1890). https://doi.org/10.1038/041392a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/041392a0
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