A study is underway in American Samoa to assess damage to archaeological sites on the main island of Tutuila exposed by the September tsunami.
The project is under the leadership of Dr David Addison, a research archaeologist at the Samoan Studies Institute at the American Samoa Community College.
Samoa News quotes Dr Addison as saying that he has organized a team of archaeological graduate students to come and search the whole coastline of Tutuila to see where archaeological sites were exposed by the tsunami in order to assess damage.
New sites unearthed by the tsunami have been recorded for future study.
The project is funded by the National Science Foundation's Rapid Response Research grant programme.