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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Explore a database of more than 220,000 shipwrecks, the largest compilation to date.

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.

Explore an interactive map of WWII shipwrecks.

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 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.

The frequency of earthquakes and the distribution of their magnitudes have not changed significantly over long-term records, but technological improvements have enabled scientists to detect more of them as they occur.

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.

See the real-time numbers of ships traversing the canal each day

This platform uses satellite data to track chokepoints and trade disruptions along the shipping lanes that crisscross the globe. Search for data from more than 1,600 ports, or run the climate scenario simulator.

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

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

A graphic illustration of death tolls in historical events and wars

Which killed more, the American Civil War or the Korean War? Hurricane Katrina or the Titanic sinking? You’ll be surprised how wrong you are about death tolls.

MarineTraffic lets you explore a real-time, interactive map tracking the locations of registered ships around the globe.

Explore an interactive timeline and map of dinosaurs across the globe

This tool maps dinosaur habitats based on fossil sites around the world. It includes short articles and additional information—including size, diet, and weight—about each dinosaur. A timeline and data table also allow users to compare dinosaur emergence and extinction dates.

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.

An archive of some of America's most significant shipwrecks

From The Portland—known as New England's "Titanic"—to the Civil War's USS Monitor, this archive from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides overviews of some of the most well-known shipwrecks in US history.

View the 10 biggest volcanic eruptions in recorded history

The Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 was the deadliest and released so much sun-blocking ash and gas that 1816 became known as “the year without summer.” The resulting global food shortages are estimated to have killed over 71,000 people.

See a visualization of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

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Track every cruise ship in real time, with itineraries and accident history

CruiseMapper is a live global tracker covering hundreds of vessels across major cruise lines. The site layers in port schedules, cabin-level deck plans, repositioning voyages, and a searchable database of 15 incident types—fires, groundings, virus outbreaks, drug smuggling, passenger deaths, and more.

Visualizing changes in ocean temperatures between 2016 and 2020

How much does the temperature of the sea change in a given year? This visualization helps illustrate the changes by showing sea surface temperature data from January 2016 through March 2020. Sea surface temperature, which refers to water temperature at the sea's surface, plays a significant role in climate and weather.

Explore an interactive timeline of technological inventions and social structures since 1500.

Explore and visualize AI-driven riverine and flash-flood forecasts across more than 150 countries to anticipate these natural disasters up to seven days in advance.

A Canadian tourism campaign turns every whale sighting—including ones from decades ago—into a live, crowdsourced migration biography

Humpback flukes (or tails) are as individually distinct as fingerprints, which means a single photo is enough to match a whale to its full sighting history. Every upload adds a chapter (the database goes back to the 1970s) and the site uses AI to render that data as narrative, not just data.

Watch footage from the moments the Titanic wreck was discovered by a joint US-French research team in 1985.

Hurricanes may kill 300 times more people than officially reported

A recent study suggests that, since 1930, more than 3.5 million people have died due to hurricanes. This incorporates the long-term effects of storms on people's health and economic well-being, contributing to thousands of premature deaths each year.

Read an eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic.

The list of historic volcanic eruptions includes the 1883 blast from Krakatau, which killed more than 36,000 and was the first such event to be documented in real time, thanks to the telegraph.