PORT ANGELES — Tons of debris washed out to sea when a tsunami struck northern Japan after a massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake March 11 — and much of it is expected to wash up on the beaches of Washington state. Oregon and British Columbia.
When will that happen and what will be found on beaches?
That’s what oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Jim Ingraham will discuss at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in Room M-125 in the Science and Technology building at Peninsula College, 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
‘Tsunami Debris’
A $5 donation is requested for the lecture, “Tsunami Debris: When Will It Arrive in America?”
The lecture is free for Peninsula College students.
After hitting land, the tsunami waves rolled back out to sea with tons of debris.
Large quantities of the floating plastics will persist for decades as they orbit the oceanic gyres, with the highest concentrations expected to wash up along North American beaches from Oregon north.
Ebbesmeyer, who holds a doctorate in oceanography from the University of Washington, is one of the experts to whom media around the world have turned for information on this disaster.
In his presentation at Peninsula College, he will provide an overview of what marine debris can tell us and offer an update relating to his work on this latest world-spanning natural disaster.
Ebbesmeyer has spent his entire 40-year career studying ocean currents.
From 1965 to 1974, he worked for Mobil Oil Corp., tracking icebergs over the Grand Banks where Mobil had placed its drilling rigs.
If an iceberg got too close to a rig, he helped figure out how to tow it away.
He then freelanced for Evans-Hamilton, an oceanographic consulting firm based in Seattle, until he retired in 2003.
During that time, he studied eddies and ocean turbulence deep below the surface; helped track the 1989 Exxon Valdes oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska; and studied how the currents in Puget Sound in Washington affected sewage outflows, oil spills and migrating salmon.
Presides over network
Today, Ebbesmeyer presides over a network of thousands of beachcombers who walk beaches all over the world. They report their findings to Ebbesmeyer, who studies the information, thinks about what it all means and compiles the information into a newsletter, “Beachcombers Alert,” which is mailed to subscribers four times a year.
Ingraham, who is retired, worked for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service and Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.
He spent 20 years of part-time sea duty in the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea measuring water properties and ocean currents and another 20 years modeling surface ocean currents on the computer that developed the OSCURS (Ocean Surface Current Simulator) model for the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea.
Today, he is consulting with Driftbusters Co.
Proceeds will benefit the Peninsula College Foundation’s support of the CWI nearshore internship program and “Beachcombers Alert.”
For more information, phone Barbara Blackie at Peninsula College at 360-417-6253 or Anne Schaefer of the Coastal Watershed Institute at 360-461-0799.
