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2011 Japan earthquake caused strange waves in Norway fjord

When the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan in March 2011, the incredible power of the quake and the resulting tsunami were felt far and wide, and according to a new study, possibly farther than anyone previously thought.

On the morning of March 11, 2011, nearly on the other side of the planet from where the earthquake occurred, people in Norway were just getting their day started when they witnessed the sea rising, and pushing up on land. Residents living along the Sognefjord, the largest fjord in Norway, captured the strange event on their video cameras and cellphones, which showed the waters rising roughly a metre and a half before receding (check out the video here).

Stein Bondevik, a geologist at Sogn og Fjordane University College, in Sogndal (which is near the eastern end of the fjord), is a tsunami expert, and he originally thought that the waves were caused by a local landslide (which is a common cause of tsunamis).

His opinion changed after seeing what had happened in Japan, though, and along with colleagues at the University of Oslo and the University of Bergen, he used the media reports and footage to study the event and found that the wave seen in the Sognefjord (and other fjords in Norway) was actually a seiche (pronounced saysh) — a standing wave caused in a body of water by vibrations or shaking. Residents of earthquake-prone areas often get them in swimming pools after a tremor, and they can sometimes be caused by wind as well (as possibly seen on the east coast of North American in June).

[ More Geekquinox: Eruption of Japanese volcano launches ash 5 km into the sky ]

We already know that the powerful earthquake had some strange effects on our planet. It altered the pull of Earth's gravity under the quake zone. It sped up the flow of an Antarctic glacier. It even rattled the highest level of our atmosphere and shortened Earth's day by about 2 microseconds. Now, amazingly, more than two years after that terrible and tragic event, we are still learning more about its wide-ranging impacts and effects.

(Screen capture courtesy: VGTV Video)

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