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Giant Lake Geneva tsunami in AD 563

Nature Geoscience volume 5, pages 756–757 (2012)Cite this article

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A Correction to this article was published on 29 November 2012

This article has been updated

To the Editor

Following the recent tsunamis in Indonesia (2004), Chile (2010) and Japan (2011), the risks associated with tsunamis have come into focus. Most tsunamis occur in the marine realm and are associated with large earthquakes. However, landlocked communities in regions without mega-earthquakes are not exempt from their destructive effects. Tsunamis have been recorded in lakes as a result of earthquakes and seismogenic landslides1, rockfalls2 and volcanic flank collapses3,4, but have rarely affected large populations. Here we present a seismic survey of Lake Geneva along with sediment core analyses suggesting that, in ad 563, a large tsunami caused considerable destruction around the lake.

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Figure 1: Simulated tsunami wave height and propagation within Lake Geneva.

Change history

  • 07 November 2012

    In the version of this Correspondence originally published, in Fig. 1 the label for 15 min was placed incorrectly on the 10 min line. This error has now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, Rue des Maraîchers 13, Geneva, 1205, Switzerland

    Katrina Kremer, Guy Simpson & Stéphanie Girardclos

  2. Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, Route de Drize 7, Geneva, 1227, Switzerland

    Katrina Kremer & Stéphanie Girardclos

Authors
  1. Katrina Kremer
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  2. Guy Simpson
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  3. Stéphanie Girardclos
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Katrina Kremer, Guy Simpson or Stéphanie Girardclos.

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Kremer, K., Simpson, G. & Girardclos, S. Giant Lake Geneva tsunami in AD 563. Nature Geosci 5, 756–757 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1618

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