Their findings may lead to speedier predictions of these giant waves.
Every minute is crucial when warning people caught in the path of a tsunami. After the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, a tsunami in Indonesia reached Sri Lanka in less than two hours. Eight hours later, it arrived on the coast of Kenya. If there had been a way to notify people about the dangers of a tsunami in those faraway areas, it may have been possible to save at least some of the 230,000 victims.