Credits and Sources

History of Tsunamis that have hit South India

A very comprehensive compilation of all the available literaure on the tsunamis that have hit the South Indian Coastline has been made by Dr.Lareef Zubair of International Research Institute for climate prediction at Coumbia University, USA. It is available here.

Here is Dr.Zubair's blog.

Satellite Bathymetry data

Professor David T.Sandwell of Scripps Institute of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, USA . The data can be accessed from here .

DEM creation free software

Mr.John Childs's BLACKART v 4.02 . Mr.Childs's web portal, from where the software can be downladed can be accessed from here.

DEM rendering 3 D GIS free software

Mr.Richard Horne's 3 DEM v.18.9.9. The web portal from where the software can be downloaded can be accessed from here .

Thanks to:

Mr.Richard B.Cathcart, who is a constant source of encouragement.



Technique used by me to measure the width of the continental shelf:

1. A map of the area was prepared using the commercial GIS software Mapinfo Professional v.7 using its World data set.

2. Sandwell's bathymetry map for the area was then aligned with this Mapinfo map, using the commercial image processing software Photoshop CS.

3. The 'Mapinfo aligned Sandwell bathymetry map' was then opened in Mapinfo Pro. Co-ordinates were then registered for the various locations.

4. The measuring tool available in the software was then used to measure the width of the continental shelf as presented in Sandwell's map.

5. The measured distance was then verified for its accuracy from the published data on the actual measurement of the width of the continental shelf. Only one study is available so far, for this area, and that is on the Mahabalipuram micro-region. The work is by G.Gaitan Vaz: "Relict coral reef and evidence of Pre-Holocene sea level stand off Mahabalipuram, Bay of Bengal" in CURRENT SCIENCE, Vol.71,No.3, 10 August 1996.

The value for the width of the Mahabalipuram continental shelf measured virtually and presented by me here, interestingly, coincides with the value generated by the field study by Dr.G.G.Vaz