Reply #6: In English... [View All]

[TreasonousBastard]

wind driven waves are surface waves and simply crash somewhere, often on a beach. They pop up and crash down and are no bigger than they look.

Tsunamis are massive amounts of water and start out at the bottom of the sea, as much as a few thousand feet down. All that water moves a huge wave, but an "invisible" one, since it's maybe a hundred miles long and very deep. When it reaches shallower areas, like a continental shelf, the deep water is pushed up, the huge length of the wave is compressed, and a wall of water and something like a tidal/storm surge hits the land.

The water wall, if there is one, is the least of it, since it breaks early like any wave but the surging water, like the surges in a hurricane, cause the real damage. The outflow might be the worst of it, sucking everything back out to sea.