Hundreds of Species Voyage Across the Pacific After Japanese Tsunami | Answers in Genesis

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Six years ago, a massive 9.0 earthquake rocked the island of Japan, but the worst was yet to come just hours later. Following the earthquake, a 125-foot tall tsunami decimated the Japanese coastline, killing 18,000 people, melting down three nuclear reactors, and washing 5 million tons of debris out to sea, including fishing boats, docks, buoys, and various pieces of wood and plastic. This debris was caught by ocean currents and slowly transported 4,000 miles to coastlines on the other side of the world, including Hawaii and the Pacific coast of North America.

 

Tsunami Voyagers

 

This tsunami debris didn’t come alone. Thousands of tiny voyagers survived the long passage at sea by riding on plastics. Marine biologists, working with local and state officials as well as citizen scientists, catalogued and bagged 600 pieces of tsunami debris and, with them, at least 289 living species (biologists suspect there are likely more that escaped their notice).

 

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