A tsunami—Japanese for 'harbor wave'—can begin with a drop in sea level before rising, which has contributed to its mistaken categorization as a tidal wave, despite being unrelated to the moon's gravity.

Tsunamis are a series of waves rather than a single one, and boats are safer from them in deeper waters, where tsunami waves are smaller.

Although earthquakes cause about 80% of tsunamis, almost all earthquakes lack sufficient energy to cause the sudden shift in the ocean floor needed to substantially displace enormous volumes of water.

Rather than being triggered by a massive displacement of water from a geological event, meteotsunamis are caused by rapid changes in air pressure from fast-moving weather systems.

Tsunamis can last for days as their successive waves hit a coastal area, with early warning systems indicating the likelihood of a tsunami's arrival on a scale from watch to advisory to warning.

Wave tanks can be used to create and study the impacts of tsunamis by building tension in an underwater object before allowing it to slip and rapidly displace water.

The tallest tsunami in recorded history was 524 meters (1,720 feet) high—taller than the Empire State Building—and occurred in Lituya Bay, Alaska, in 1958 after an earthquake dislodged a rockface into the water.

View a tsunami travel time map to learn how many hours its waves are estimated to take to reach different parts of Earth when originating from a list of geologically active locations.

Because seismic waves travel 100 times faster than tsunami waves—waves typically travel faster through solids than liquids—measurements of geological activity help tsunami detection systems provide early warnings.

Explore an interactive time-lapse of reported tsunami events since 1850, with identified cause, recorded observations, known deaths, and other information available for each.

How the moon creates tides

Anyone who has visited large bodies of water virtually anywhere on Earth notices low and high tides occur at regular intervals, a process primarily driven by the moon’s gravitational pull. This explainer details how the motion of the Earth and Moon interact to create tides.

The moon's gravity exerts an overall pressure that displaces the oceans toward the opposite sides of Earth's equator, producing tides.

Infrastructure built to limit tsunami damage includes channels to divert water, floodgates, and seawalls, such as the approximately 400-kilometer (249-mile) wall built in Japan after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

Storm surges, not winds, are the leading cause of hurricane-related fatalities

A storm surge is an abnormal rise in water levels generated by a storm that exceeds predicted tides. It is particularly dangerous in coastal regions, where it can generate extreme flooding well before the hurricane makes landfall.

NASA's GUARDIAN software uses changes in satellite navigation signals and AI-powered detection algorithms to anticipate tsunamis and provide real-time alerts to at-risk communities before the phenomena are detected by tidal sensors.

Likened to a car backfiring or a faraway cannon fire, skyquakes have been reported worldwide in Earth's atmosphere without any obvious cause.

From 1610 BCE to 2025 CE, at least 250 of the over 3,000 confirmed tsunamis were deadly, and the 2004 Indonesia tsunami was the deadliest, with over 227,000 casualties.

Why do flash floods occur?

Flash flooding can be more dangerous than traditional floods, occurring within the span of hours and exhibiting rapid currents. Here's how atmospheric conditions and geography combine to make some locations ripe for the disaster.

How do hurricanes form?

Tropical cyclones, also called hurricanes and typhoons, cause catastrophic damage when they strike land. This four-minute video explores the life cycle of cyclones—how atmospheric conditions, ocean temperatures, and the Earth's rotation combine to create them, and how they are driven by winds and eventually weaken after moving over land.

Tectonic earthquakes are caused by tectonic plates sliding past one another at fault zones, deforming rock through friction as energy builds like a stretched rubber band.

The four types of seismic waves—vibrations that carry energy generated by geological events, such as earthquakes—are categorized as body or surface waves.

Various types of tornadoes are distinguished by their shape, size, and location

Waterspouts form over water as long, thin columns of mist and air, while elephant trunks are tornadoes that elongate vertically as they become tilted during their formation, resembling the mammal's appendage. Wedge tornadoes are among the most powerful, often spanning a mile or more in width.

Why is sea level rising?

Rising global sea level is one of the most commonly cited consequences of climate change, but it’s often unclear how it might affect people living on the coasts. Read this explanation of why global sea level is rising and why sea level rise happens at different rates in different locations.

Quicksand—a mixture of sand with clay or silt soaked in water that gives way when enough pressure is applied—is denser than the human body, meaning you naturally float inside it.

The way hurricanes are categorized may mislead the public to their dangers

The Saffir-Simpson scale categorizes hurricanes based on wind speed, but tropical cyclones' main dangers are storm surges and heavy rainfall. To better communicate risks to the public, a new system that incorporates hurricane size, water content, and other complexities should be developed.

38 thought-provoking facts about the ocean

Coral produces its own sunscreen, tsunamis move at 500 miles per hour, one of the loudest sounds ever recorded came from an ice quake, and other interesting facts collected from sources such as National Geographic and NASA.

Thunder occurs when fast-flowing electricity heats and pressurizes air, causing it to expand and produce a shockwave at each point along the bolt at multiple frequencies.

Deep-sea trenches form when one tectonic plate subducts another underwater

Oceanic plates sink when colliding with less dense continental plates, bending the seafloor into steep depressions that can be almost 11 kilometers deep. Many of Earth’s strongest earthquakes occur at these plate boundaries, often featuring volcanic activity.

The moon is slowly contracting as its interior cools, creating moonquakes and lobate scarps—cliffs that are steep on one side and gently sloping on the other—as the moon's surface buckles.

After a landslide, repeat activity may follow the appearance of cracks, springs of water, or dirt, sand, and rocks tumbling down from scars—exposed portions of Earth where the initial landslide began.

Some tectonic plates move faster than their underlying convection currents

Like a chain slipping off a ledge, as tectonic plates sink, their weight can pull the rest of the trailing plate forward, accelerating their movement. Plates can also break apart and fall, creating a suction effect that drives movement, resembling leaves following a passing car.

In the US, flash floods—rapid floods that occur within six hours of rain—kill more people than tornadoes, hurricanes, and lightning.

Some earthquakes can produce smaller tremors called boomerang earthquakes, which travel in the opposite direction and ripple back to the original earthquake's source.

Scientists define sea level as the elevation to which water would settle on Earth's surface, given the planet's gravitational field and rotation.

Rather than predicting them in advance, earthquake early warning systems detect tremors moments after they begin and send notifications that reach users before the seismic activity does.

While landslides are associated with the downward flow of unstable terrain, the term encompasses a variety of geological processes, which are distinguished by how the material moves and what materials are involved.

Earthquakes of identical magnitudes are unlikely to cause equal damage because magnitude only measures energy released, and earthquake severity depends on environmental factors, such as local architecture and geological conditions.

Tropical cyclones, which include hurricanes and typhoons, consist of three main parts: the eye, the eyewall, and rainbands.

What makes the world's biggest waves?

Some of the world’s biggest waves, routinely reaching 100 feet high, are formed near the town of Nazaré, Portugal. But what makes this area so prone to massive swells? While a number of factors are involved, the key feature is the Nazaré Canyon,...

If the moon were less than one-twelfth its current distance from Earth, the planet's tidal forces would overcome the moon's internal gravity, tearing it apart and forming a ring of debris.

The risk of tornadoes and storm surges is greatest on the 'dirty side' of a hurricane

Winds in the right-front quadrant of the storm are amplified by the hurricane's motion and its rotation, which both move air in the same direction. Upon making landfall, these winds pull water from the Gulf and Atlantic onto land, creating storm surges. Tornadoes can also be generated from large differences in wind speed and direction at various heights.

The moon is moving 3.8 centimeters farther away from Earth each year

Driven by tidal forces, the effect is minimal and slow, ensuring stable tidal patterns and lunar cycles. Earth's rotation slows down as the Moon gains orbital momentum, slowly lengthening the day over time.

The geoid depicts what Earth would look like if not for tides and currents, given the planet's rotation and uneven gravitational field.

When oceanic plates sink beneath tectonic ones, they can generate magma

At converging oceanic-continental plate boundaries, the subduction of the oceanic plate introduces seawater that reduces the melting temperature of the overlying mantle. This causes it to melt into less dense magma, which can rise to fuel more volcanic activity.

The biggest ocean waves in the world, which regularly reach between 80 and 100 feet, are primarily caused by a 140-mile-long submarine canyon that reaches a maximum depth of 16,000 feet.

Mapping the Tongan eruption impact

A team of scientists—with the help of an uncrewed boat remotely controlled from the UK—join forces to produce one of the clearest pictures to date of what took place underneath the water as an enormous volcano erupted near the Tongan mainland.

As of 2026, the world's largest tropical cyclone was Typhoon Tip, whose size spanned the equivalent of half the continental US.

Hurricane Helene dumped enough water to fill Lake Tahoe

Alongside a rainstorm that moved into the region ahead of it, the hurricane released an unprecedented 40 trillion gallons of rain on the southeastern US, causing catastrophic flooding and at least 100 deaths. Meteorologists suggest climate change is exacerbating the severity of such events.

Geological tremors on the moon provide evidence that it is shrinking

Apollo seismometers have collected moonquake data, which scientists have analyzed to map the moon's interior and reveal that fault slips producing tremors are the result of sublunar cooling and contraction. It also revealed that the moon's inner core is about 500 kilometers (311 miles) across.

Scientists determine earthquake locations by comparing how long it takes different seismic waves to be detected at three stations around the world, from which an origin, or hypocenter, can be triangulated.

Just as light bends at different angles as it travels through different materials, seismic waves move in different directions through Earth's interior, revealing the presence of layers with varying properties.