Last week , Mexico get a major earthquake that vote out at least two mass . Given its 7.6 order of magnitude , there were fears the death toll could be considerably big . Being on land , the quake did not cause a tsunami in the ocean . However , it triggered what has been term a “ desert tsunami ” in the Devil ’s Hole pool , Death Valley – 1,500 kilometers ( 932 miles ) from the quake ’s epicenter .

The Devil ’s Hole is remarkable in several mode . place in possibly the hot place on Earth , see any water supply there is impressive . Yet the small pool not only lasts through years without rainfall and competition for groundwater , it patronise theDevil ’s Hole pupfish(Cyprinodon diabolis ) . The Pisces the Fishes , with the most restricted cooking stove of any craniate , have survived in isolation in water half the distance of an Olympian syndicate and a single lane astray since the local climate dried out 10,000 years ago .

Being only 22 meter ( 72 metrical unit ) long , the pool is n’t the sorting of station one would bear fully grown waves . However , its size and great depth make it well suitable to seiches , a type of standing wave . The speeding with which water traverses the pool and its length means waves bound off walls in time to constructively interfere with each other , make the wave height to establish . It ’s similar to the agency good moving ridge make a resonant frequency in a wind instrument of suitable length .

“ The pupfish have survive several of these event in recent year , ” state Kevin Wilson , National Park Service aquatic ecologist in astatement . “ We did n’t find any dead Pisces after the waves discontinue . ”

The pupfish bank on alga growing on a shallow shelf of the pool for food for thought , and the moving ridge action and stir sediment remove much of this . With Pisces numbers having risen from 35 nine old age ago to 175 at the last census , any drop in the food supply could have serious issue . At least the shaking should have temporarily addressed the water system ’s low oxygen level , which may be why unseasonal spawning outcome often follow seiches .

The fact the yap was shaken by a earthquake almost a thousand miles away is impressive enough , the Parks Service Websitereportsseiches have previously been associated with quakes as far abroad as Japan , Indonesia , and Chile .

Seiches can be triggered by storms on lakes or bay , and recently pull attention as the explanation for events in what was then America ’s inland sea on theday the dinosaur died .