BIG TIDAL WAVE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29706, 27 December 1961, Page 13

BIG TIDAL WAVE

Help In Study Of Geology (N.Z.P.A.-Reuler) ANCHORAGE. Alaska. A destructive, giant tidal wave reaching up to 1000 feel above sea level and sweeping forests ahead of it has laid bare the geology of an area in Alaska that is now being studied by glacier scientists. Their field work is finished and they arc analysing their findings at the University of Ohio State at Columbus. Ohio. The expedition, sponsored under a National Science Foundation grant, was led by Dr. Richard P. Goldthwait. The research associate was Mr lan McKellar, on leave from the New Zealand Geological Survey. Included in the scientific group were a botanist and two student assistants. Their area of operation is at Lituya Bay, a part of Glacier Bay National Monument north of Juneau, Alaska. An extraordinary tidal wave has made the bay interesting because it peeled off the vegetation covering the shore area up to 500 feet above sea level at most places. At one point along a sheer cliff the water rose to 1000 feet. This wave, that acted like an invincible bulldozer, had its origin in an earthquake which rapped the head end of the hammer-headed bay and sent the water outward in one big bulge. It occured in July. 1958. coming without warning and catching two fishing boats that had entered the bay for shelter. One boat and its crew were lost; but miraculously the other managed to ride it out without injury other than fright and shock to its crew a man and his son. Rescuers and curiosity-seekers came afterwards to see walls and slopes of raw rock and gravel beds where a spruce and hemlock forest previously stood. This fact, coupled with the knowledge that Lituya Bay was largely formed by two glaciers, made it interesting to Ohio State University's Polar Institute. Fortner Waves The big wave was not a complete surprise to the scientists. Others have splashed and dashed their way through the same chan-nel-one in 1938. a probable one in 1899 and another in 1853 or 1854, The one in 1936 was witnessed and those preceding have been deduced by scientists. Mr McKellar said of this year's field study: "We wanted to make it before the glacier remains were again covered by vegetation." Some of the washed area was covered again by plants and new trees. Enough was still open to make the expedition profitable. They found evidence indicating that the sea level stood 20 feet higher than it now does, since the Bay was last covered in the Ice Age. By way of contrast, the scientists also found evidence indicating that the sea level once stood lower than it now does. Old tree stumps were found under low tide Samples of the stumps will be tested by radiocarbon analysis to determine the age of the trees. Mr McKellar said that the expedition had a basis for thinking that more than one glacial sheet covered the area, laid its calling card in the form of a gravel sheet and then retreated. How many glaciers and when they occured are matters requiring further study.