Tsunami mapping

Two

researchers have been awarded an $86,000 grant from

, one of the world’s largest commercial property insurers, to create maps of the East Coast of the

that will identify potential flooding and damage that could occur if a tsunami struck the region.

Ocean engineering professors Stephan Grilli of Narragansett and Christopher Baxter of Cranston will study historical events and evaluate the risks and probabilities of a tsunami striking anywhere on the East Coast from the Carolinas to Maine.

“FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] has worked on hazard maps for the West Coast and Hawaii for years, but none have been made for the East Coast,” Grilli said. “That’s partly because there is a lower risk for tsunamis in the Atlantic, but also because they’re more complicated to predict.”

A tsunami in the Pacific Ocean would likely be caused by an underwater earthquake that quickly raises or lowers part of the seafloor, according to Grilli, and the resulting wave created by such an event is relatively easy to predict.