Risk of Odds

Studying an ancient earthquake has enabled Oxford University researchers to quantify the likelihood of a tsunami in the Eastern Mediterranean.

They estimate that a ring of faults around the south of Greece and the Aegean Sea generates tsunami earthquakes approximately once every 800 years and, because the last such earthquake took place in 1303, the probability of a tsunami affecting the region is much higher than had been thought.

The Oxford researchers – working with colleagues from the Universities of Cambridge, Nice and Imperial College London – identified the cause of an earthquake that generated a tsunami that destroyed Alexandria on 21 July AD 365.

source: www.ox.ac.uk/media