User:Anongeologist/1958 Lituya Bay earthquake and megatsunami

Article Evaluation

The article is well organized, starting with a lead (an overview of the topic), and ending with an analysis. The lead section includes a concise overview of the topic and contains the most important basic information about the event. The content within the article is overall relevant and the "Lituya Bay", "History of Past Events" and "Analysis" sections are sufficient for organization. The addition of an eyewitness account is a particularly good addition. The History of Past Events section appears as if it can be developed more but is properly cited. The tone is neutral and the majority of claims are supported by reliable citations excluding the 2010 Analysis section which is lacking in some. One issue is that the 2010 Analysis section contains a link to the Parraguirre landslide which does not actively link to anything. The analysis also does seem to appear a little older (one in 1999 and one in 2010), but instead should be more current. The article has about 6 clear images, with a well written description to go with each image. One thing that could have improved is the history of past events. It is about 5 sentences short, but should be more descriptive and involve more images. Overall, the article runs smoothly, but more information could have been added in order to make the article more lengthy and informative for readers. Most of the article covered material on the background of the location where the earthquake happened rather than go into depth about the 1958 event itself. I do think providing updates on the site after this event to account for any further movements is wise, however. I think pictures could have been provided showing the damage that the earthquake had on its affected areas.

Contribution Draft

We can type here for our contribution assignment!

Relevant Pictures

This image of the damage is public domain and on wikipedia's image library so we should consider using it

There are quite a few pictures in the article that depict the landscape itself showing the aftermath of the megatsunami, but there isn't as much focus on the damage that the earthquake preceding the large tidal wave created. I could not find many pictures from the tsunami. However, there was an important image I felt needed to be added to the current article that shows the relative height of the wave caused by the earthquake.

https://www.tbsnews.net/environment/nature/tall-killer-wave-1958-lituya-bay-mega-tsunami-28083

This link right here holds the image comparing the magnitude of the wave to famous NYC building in order for readers to imagine the actual height of this megatsunami.

https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/lituya-bay-1958

I know wikipedia has a very strict image policy that I'm not entirely familiar with so this may be useless but this is a good photo of the bay from the USGS that is allegedly public domain

Tectonic History and Past Events

Tectonics in Lituya Bay are mainly centered around the Pacific and North American plates, therefore nearby faults like those up and north and south of the Alaskan coast even down to California could be significant.

This link http://www.drgeorgepc.com/Tsunami1958LituyaB.html from Dr. George PC's disaster pages seems somewhat promising as a source analyzing the basics of the tectonic setting.

One of the reasons why the massive waves occurred in Lituya Bay was that a whole section of a mountain peak that was around 2,400 feet by 3,000 feet by 300 feet, broke away from a mountain and fell 2,000 feet.

The lead section already includes a line about tectonics of the location and type of earthquake ("The strike-slip earthquake took place on the Fairweather Fault") that could be relevant to verify with extra sources and/or elaborate on

Magnitude of Damage

The megatsunami flooded Lituya Bay and created a damage line up to 700 feet around the outline of the bay, with evidence of the damage line seen from space to this day when observing the forests.

The destruction of surrounding forests

and are sources for this

-There is an existing sentence about this at the end of the eyewitness account section and one I've added that we should move into our damage section when created

Analysis of different source mechanisms

-Tectonic Mechanism

-Rockfall Impact mechanism

-Lake drainage mechanism

-Landslide mechanism

This link is a useful tool to help us outline and understand the difference source mechanisms: http://www.drgeorgepc.com/Tsunami1958LituyaB.html

Add Second Eyewitness Account (section already exists)

-Account of Howard G. Ulrich and his seven year old son who were out on the bay at the time. Information about this account can be found here in the 2nd source from our bibliography:

Organize rockfall section into actual rockfall info and then create a tsunami section (moving some of tsunami info out of rockfall and adding more)

-A peer review suggested adding a section or at least some more information about the tsunami since it's pretty significant but the article doesn't seem to give much detail about it. There is some good information on it but it is all within the "Rockfall" section, which makes sense, but we should consider indicating the tsunami part in the header like "Rockfall and Tsunami" or splitting the two into different sections.