Within the framework of catastrophic plate tectonics, large tsunamis are a plausible mechanism for producing fossil-bearing sediments of the Flood rock record. The focus of this research is to model the behavior of an overriding slab in response to a rapidly subducting plate with the aim of understanding in more detail the tsunami generation process. Key to this process is the locking and unlocking of the overriding and subducting slabs. The unlocking results in the rapid rise of the sea bottom and generation of a tsunami. Several key questions arise in this context that the model seeks to answer. What is the character of the friction for the plates to be locked sufficiently long to produce large tsunamis? What sort of the stresses occur to keep the slabs locked together? How rapidly can the deformed overriding slab relax mechanically from its deformed shape? How much deformational heating arises when the overriding slab is repetitively loaded? To address these questions in a quantitative manner, we apply the finite element analysis code Ansys. Preliminary results show the relaxation time is short enough (~15 min for 2.5 km of deflection of the overriding plate). Additionally, stresses look reasonable for the large deflections that are involved.
