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

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.

Explore an interactive map of volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis from 2150 BCE to the present.

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.

The world's tallest tsunami 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.

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.

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.

Explore an interactive timeline of Earth's 4.5-billion-year history to visualize shifting landmasses and oceans, view the locations of significant asteroid impacts, and learn about major geological and biological events.

Early warning systems indicate the likelihood of a tsunami on a scale from watch to advisory to warning, and those in coastal areas may anticipate its arrival by feeling a long earthquake.

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.

Check out hurricane history where you live

The NOAA's historical hurricane tracker lets you explore over 150 years of data to see where hurricanes traveled and made landfall. The tool lets you search by location, name, or year; create maps and tables; and read NOAA storm reports.

The weather time machine

A fun interactive on how old ships’ logs are giving scientists new insights into the past and future of the Earth’s changing climate (w/maps and pictures).

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.

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.

View the past month of earthquakes worldwide with this digital globe, which displays data from the US Geological Survey.

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

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

NOAA's interactive sea level rise viewer

How will rising seas affect you? Launch NOAA's sea level rise viewer and zoom in on impacts to different parts of the United States, or type in your city or address to learn more.

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.

See a visualization of the Japanese attack

This animated visualization reconstructs the two-wave Pearl Harbor strike—showing the flight paths, ship positions, and timing that allowed Japan’s carrier force to severely damage Battleship Row in just 110 minutes while catching US defenses off guard.

View maps of seafloor topography, earthquakes, and volcanic activity, which scientists use to create outlines of Earth's tectonic plates.

Explore a database of more than 200,000 wrecks

Only a small fraction of shipwrecks occurring throughout human history have been discovered. This database is the largest compilation to date, and includes more than 80,000 images, with related news updated on a rolling basis.

View a map of the world's major earthquakes from 1956 to 2022, which can be used to identify tectonic plate boundaries.

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.

A new scan of the Titanic reveals details about its final hours

Using over 700,000 images captured by underwater robots, researchers created a highly detailed 3D "digital twin" of the Titanic. The analysis gives us new insights into the life of the ship that lays 3,800m down in the icy waters of the Atlantic. Emerging details from close-up images, such as a smashed porthole likely caused by the iceberg, match the eye-witness accounts of what happened. Read for more insights into the devastating wreck.

Visualize real-time and historical atmospheric conditions from around the world

This tool provides live maps of wind, rain, thunderstorms, and other atmospheric phenomena overlayed on an interactive map of the Earth. Users can enter their location to explore local atmospheric dynamics and review historical weather conditions dating back to 1979.

Visualizing cause of death over time in America

As people age, their life expectancy decreases, but the timing and speed of this decline have evolved over the years. Check out this chart which shows the shift in various causes of death of Americans over the last few decades. Data from the...

Visualize population densities around the world represented as geographic terrain and how those densities changed from 1900 to 1975 to 2015.

Explore an interactive map of WW2 shipwrecks

Historians estimate roughly 20,000 ships were sunk during World War II as a direct cause of fighting, primarily in the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters. This mapping project lists about 75% of them, while the remainder lacked specific location data.

Explore the decommissioning work at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station

This virtual tour explores the nuclear disaster site, which resulted from a magnitude 9.1 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, and the various processes underway to remove debris, fuel, and contaminated water.

Track active wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters across the US in real-time with this interactive map.

Visualizing the year in US tornadoes, 2024

Between January and November 2024, over 1,700 tornadoes were documented to have touched down in the US, a relatively high number (and similar to the numbers in 2004, 2008, and 2011). This map shows their location across the country to help capture the number.