East Coast Cities at Risk in Future Tsunamis

If a major tsunami were to occur off the Atlantic coast, cities from New England to New Jersey could be hardest hit by the incoming walls of speeding water.

John Ebel, an earth-sciences professor at Boston College, put his hometown and its coastal kin on the danger map during a presentation on Friday at the Seismological Society of America's annual meeting. Ebel was inspired to take up the question of East Coast tsunami damage after a "swarm" of 15 earthquakes struck about 170 miles east of Boston in April 2012, with the largest being of 4.0 magnitude. The same year, several other tremors occurred off the coasts of Newfoundland and Cape Cod along the Atlantic continental shelf.