What natural protections could a small oceanic island have against tsunamis?

In what ways could an island be protected from tsunamis, given the following constraints?:

• It lies in the middle of the ocean, at least several hundred kilometers from the nearest continent.
• It does not rise up from a continental shelf - the surrounding ocean is at least a couple of kilometers deep.
• It is at most ~25km wide in the longest dimension.
• It has "line of sight" (along the surface of the planet) to a fault line, subduction zone, anything that might result in a tsunami.

(See Easter Island for a real-life example that satisfies these rules.)

Possible parameters to consider include the shape of the island, the slope of the insular shelf, the island's topography, etc.

So far, I've been able to come up with the "obvious" solution of having the island have high cliffs all around the coast, but I'm curious what other solutions there are that I haven't considered.

posted about 7 years ago

andrej88‭

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