If you’ve ever seen an ocean, you would have seen that the surface of an ocean isn’t still. It’s covered by waves. Some waves can be small ripples, and some can be large, crashing walls of water. Some waves are slow and gentle, but some waves can travel very quickly. How fast do you think
If you’ve ever seen an ocean, you would have seen that the surface of an ocean isn’t still. It’s covered by waves. Some waves can be small ripples, and some can be large, crashing walls of water. Some waves are slow and gentle, but some waves can travel very quickly.
How fast do you think the fastest waves are? Faster than a human can run? Faster than a racing bicycle? Actually, the fastest ocean waves travel at speeds of over 800 km per hour. That means they are faster than a commercial jet plane! These extreme waves are called tsunami, or tidal waves.
A tsunami forms when there’s a sudden, large release of energy in the bottom of an ocean, such as during an earthquake. During an earthquake, the ocean floor shifts, and shoves a large amount of water out of the way very quickly. This causes a massive wave that can be hundreds of kilometeres long. The wave may not look like much out at sea, but remember that the ocean is very deep, and unlike regular waves, which are only at the surface of the water, a tsunami wave travels down the entire depth of the ocean. When a tsunami hits the shore, it slows down and the waves behind it pile up on top of it. This can cause a wall of water over 30 feet high!
