(Image: Eye Ubiquitous/Rex Features)
AN EARLY warning system for destructive underwater waves has passed its first test in the Andaman Sea, north-west of Sumatra, Indonesia.
The system is designed to look for solitons, powerful pulses that can be triggered at the boundary between layers of dense and less-dense water, often when a step change in the sea’s depth disrupts a tidal flow. On the surface they can appear as relatively innocuous white horses, but deep down they can generate powerful vertical currents that are a hazard to divers, says Martin Goff, a UK-based expert on solitons at Fugro GEOS, a…
