The Case of the Disappearing Lighthouse

• Main Authors: Goff, James, Dudley, Walter
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University Press 2021
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197546123.003.0002

This chapter follows the course of the waves caused by the 1946 Aleutian earthquake, which ultimately resulted in the creation of the first official tsunami warning system, from their source in Alaska as they demolished a Coast Guard lighthouse, caused massive destruction and loss of life in Hawaii, and ultimately reached the shores of Antarctica. The chapter presents observations by mariners at sea off Alaska, Navy pilots flying over Hawaii, and a marine geologist in the Hawaiian Islands for the Bikini atomic bomb tests and firsthand accounts of amazing survival and tragic loss in Hawaii. In addition to the devastating tsunami, 1946 marked the year when scientists in Japan and the English-speaking world finally adopted the name “tsunami” for these events.