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Originally Posted by tellumFS
Yakk - Thanks! Very interesting post!
Now, probably a pretty stupid question here, but say a five megatonne bomb were to be detonated in the ocean...would it have the same kind of effect in creating a tsunami as an earthquake, or would the earthquake's effects be different because it's spread out more on a fault?
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If the bomb is detonated on the surface it would do little in the way of creating a tsunami type wave.
Tsunamis are created when a large volume of ocean water is suddenly displaced, causing the wave to actually extend all the way down to the bottom of the ocean, normal ocean waves only travel along the surface or just below it. Earth quakes would generally cause a larger tsunami than a bomb because they can displace a larger quantity of water than a bomb, even though a bomb may release more energy than the earthquake.