Japan Crisis - Chart Porn

Here's a collection of infographics on the Japan Crisis: Japan Crisis - Chart PornTsunami Wave Progression is a video model of the wave as it moves across the Pacific.

Thanks for the various explanations of how the tsunami wave works. I get it now. The most useful came in email and reminded me of the basics of pressure waves. The water wave doesn't move 500 miles an hour. Instead the force of the quake pushed the water molecules together. So one collides into the next and into the next etc. So an individual molecule doesn't move far but the the force propagates at 500 miles an hour. That speed is in fact the speed of sound which is defined as how fast the pressure wave moves through a medium.