British navy releases images of Indian Ocean earthquake seabed

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2005

LONDON (AFP) — The British Navy surveying the seabed at the epicenter of December's Indian Ocean earthquake released its first images that indicate a landslide occurred where two plates came together in a ridge.

The Royal Navy's HMS Scott has been taking underwater sonar readings off the Indonesian island of Sumatra to try to find out how the December 26 earthquake unfolded and then produced the giant waves that have killed nearly 300,000 people in 11 countries.

The colored digital mapping, displayed at the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office in Taunton, Somerset, showed a large landslide some 100 metres high by two kilometres in length.

HMS Scott's Commanding Officer Steve Malcolm said initial assessments by scientists indicate two of the earth's tectonic...