Diane Marie Henderson, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Diane Marie Henderson, Thesis Supervisor Nigel David Higson, Faculty Reader Dr. Diane Marie Henderson, Thesis Honors Advisor
In this thesis, we look at the propagation of shallow-water waves using theory, experiment, and ocean data. First, we examine the classical models for shallow-water waves and look for approximate solutions to the initial value problem. Second, we use the theory as a framework for experiments and for data collected from tsunamis. Third, we qualitatively compare the results obtained from laboratory experiments and ocean data to predictions. We find that these predictions are in qualitative agreement with both the experimental data and the ocean data. However, predictions of actual tsunami evolution at particular locations require knowledge of the initial data, which is not known in real time, and knowledge of bathymetry, which we do not account for herein.
