How Do Tsunamis Happen? with Dr. Tina Dura

More than half of the world’s population lives near a coastline. And where there’s a coastline, there’s the potential for a tsunami. This week, Dr. Tina Dura joins Jonathan to talk all about these geohazards, whose waves can soar to over 1000 feet tall. Learn how tsunamis form, how they’ve altered landscapes across millenia, and what to do if you’re in a hazard zone.

Dr. Tina Dura, head of the Coastal Hazards Lab at Virginia Tech, specializes in subduction zone paleoseismology, which combines the methods of coastal stratigraphy, sedimentology, and micropaleontology to reconstruct thousands or year-long histories of earthquake induced land-level change and tsunami inundation. These long-term records of earthquakes and tsunamis help us understand their magnitude and recurrence interval through time, improving hazards preparedness along subduction zone coastlines.

Dr. Dura is on Twitter at @diatomdura. You can learn more about Dr. Dura’s work at coastalhazardslab.com. Want to learn more about tsunami preparedness? Check out these resources:

Tsunamis | Ready.gov

Tsunami Preparedness | Tsunami Safety Tips | Red Cross

Tsunami Preparedness and Mitigation: Individuals (You!) | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Another great resource is ShakeAlert, which we discussed in our episode about earthquakes with Dr. Ashly Cabas. If you haven’t heard that episode, or you’re due for a refresh, you can check it out here.

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