UNLESS A TRULY extraordinary coincidence occurs on July 22, 2009, the only accurate statement in the preceding message is that a solar eclipse will be visible in some parts of the world on that day.
Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes, not eclipses.
Though astronomers have long been able to predict eclipses by tracking the orbits of the sun and the moon, no such capability exists for earthquakes, nor is there any known correlation between the two phenomena.
"In the last 110 years or so, there have been about 85 really big earthquakes," Professor Kerry Sieh of Singapore's Earth Observatory explained in a statement to Channel News Asia in April 2009. "And only two of those occurred on the same day as an eclipse. And even those were a partial eclipse, not a total eclipse. They happened in a different place from where the eclipse happened."
NASA's Dr. James Foster concurs:
Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions do indeed occur at times of eclipses. But records show that they occur with no greater frequency or power than on days when full Moons or new Moons occur (without eclipses), when all the planets line up on the same side of the Sun or on days when the Moon is in a crescent or gibbous phase. As special as eclipses are, they simply don't have a known impact on any geophysical phenomena.
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Related:
Fake Tsunami Picture
Urban Legends, January 2005
Sources and further reading:
Email Hoax on Earthquake, Tsunami in Asia on July 22
Channel News Asia, 15 April 2009
Total Solar Eclipse of 2009 July 22
NASA Eclipse Website
Can the Position of the Moon Affect Seismicity?
U.C. Berkeley Seismological Laboratory
Science Question of the Week
NASA, 29 October 2004
Predicting Earthquakes: Why Earthquakes Occur
PBS Online NewsHour, June 2004
Solar Eclipses of Historical Interest
NASA Eclipse Website
Last updated: 04/22/09
