If, not when: An earthquake is destined to destroy the Pacific Northwest.

What is the Cascadia subduction zone?

A look at the Cascadia subduction zone, where the historical record suggests the Pacific Northwest is due for a devastating mega-earthquake in the coming years.

View the 10 largest earthquakes ever recorded as of 2025, led by a 1960 magnitude 9.5 earthquake in Chile, which left about 2 million people unhoused.

The Ring of Fire, which spans 40,000 kilometers (24,900 miles) around the Pacific Ocean, is the most geologically active region on Earth.

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

Portugal's 1775 earthquake is considered Europe's first modern natural disaster.

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.

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.

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.

The San Andreas Fault is an example of tectonic plates sliding past each other

The transform boundary divides the opposing movements of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, which create shear zones that distort and fracture rock. These movements produce shallow earthquakes as rocks are gradually displaced hundreds of miles.

Many believe a cataclysmic volcanic eruption is imminent at Yellowstone, though experts say it is unlikely

Mike Poland, a scientist at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, estimates the likelihood of the event at one in a million. He cautions, though, that the park poses other potential dangers, including steam explosions and earthquakes.

As of 2025, the world's largest tropical cyclone spanned half the continental US

Typhoon Tip traveled across the western Pacific Ocean in 1979, achieving winds of 300 kilometers per hour. Though it weakened significantly before making landfall in Japan, its rainfall produced over 600 mudslides and killed 42 people.

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

How the Turkish earthquake created a 100-mile rupture

A February 2023 earthquake devastated parts of Turkey and Syria destroying entire blocks, with more than 50,000 people killed. A scientific analysis revealed a fault line with a 100-mile-long rupture, where separate tectonic plates moved more than...

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.

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

Visualize the power and frequency of earthquakes across the moment magnitude scale, where a whole number increase corresponds to about 32 times more energy released.

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.

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.

The world's largest earthquake simulator is an 800-ton shake table facility in Miki, Japan, which was built to test the resilience of structures after the 1995 Kobe earthquake killed over 6,000 people.

What makes the Earth shake?

Researchers are demystifying the science of earthquakes—from their origins deep within the Earth to the scales that measure their strength. This article, which was part of a series of weekly reports from Cornell University, serves as a guide to...

Mapping fiction's imagined breakdowns of the US after apocalypse

Post-apocalyptic fiction in the US is at least a century old, and how the future is envisioned reflects contemporary anxieties and divisions. This piece examines the various creative maps birthed from the tradition from Jack London's 1912 "The Scarlet Plague," a pandemic novel set in 2073, through Stephen King's "The Stand", dystopian "The Hunger Games," and visions of civil war.

Micro-seismic activity has been produced from people cheering or dancing at sporting events, concerts, and other large gatherings, but scientists can easily distinguish these vibrations from natural earthquakes using seismometers.

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.

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.

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

A magnitude 25 earthquake would release enough energy to destroy the sun, while a particle of dust drifting onto a table would have a magnitude of about -15.

Should you get earthquake insurance?

Standard home insurance doesn’t typically cover earthquakes. Even if you don't live in a state that's known for its earthquakes like California, it might be worth considering—although it's worth noting that only 13% of California residents have earthquake insurance. Learn more about earthquake insurance in this article.

View a list of the worst nuclear meltdowns before 2013

Nuclear meltdowns occur when a reactor overheats and radioactive materials leach into the surrounding environment. While rare, the reasons for each occurrence—as detailed in this piece—can help establish new safety protocols for future reactors.

A modern-day version of the dinosaur-killing asteroid would kill billions of people

Such an asteroid would level Central America, trigger tsunamis, spark global fires, and plunge the planet into an artificial winter lasting over a decade. Bunkers would be insufficient for survival without years of provisions.

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.

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.

Because the Richter scale was calibrated to crustal and mantle properties in Southern California, seismologists have instead used the moment magnitude scale to quantify earthquakes since the 1970s.

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.

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.

Simulations of atmospheric transport have shown that radioactive material released from potential strikes to US nuclear missile silos would reach everyone in the continental US.

Predicting earthquakes is difficult because different rock types can withstand different amounts of stress before breaking and melt at different temperatures within Earth's interior, introducing uncertainty into predictive models.

Could the world's largest solar storm happen again?

In 1859, the world witnessed the most intense solar storm in recorded history. The electromagnetic deluge of dust and gas lit up the night sky and sparked fires, disrupting Earth's magnetic field and putting on a show for the millions. If a storm with a similar intensity today occurred, scientists believe it would be catastrophic for our communications systems. Learn what would happen if the Carrington Event happened again here.

The volcano threatening the Greek island of Santorini

Santorini is a popular tourist destination, known for its stunning white architecture and dreamy blue waters. Yet underneath the charming island is a potentially dangerous underwater volcano. Recent earthquakes have triggered nearly half of residents to evacuate, signaling heightened uncertainty about when the volcano could erupt. Researchers studying activity in the region plan to produce detailed hazard maps for Greek authorities to improve local safety and emergency planning.

Supervolcanoes can eject enough material to fill one-fourth of the Grand Canyon

Although extremely rare, their released material can trigger winters by blocking the sun and cooling the Earth’s surface for years. The Toba supereruption 74,000 years ago disrupted food chains and reduced the human population to a few thousand.

Tracing the history of the philosophy of human extinction

Global catastrophe is at the center of much contemporary debate over climate, war, science, technology, and more, and our period is marked by a lurking sense everything we know—including the human species—could end overnight. It wasn't always...

Watch a North Carolina house collapse into the ocean

While the Outer Banks experiences beach erosion, rip currents and overwash from a nor’easter along the coast, a seaside house in Rodanthe collapsed Tuesday.

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.

The worst US bank runs since 1900

From the Panic of 1907 to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in 2023, this bank scholar and former Fed official goes into the history of the country's worst bank runs.

Why Turkey's earthquakes were so deadly

The death toll from February 2023 has reached the tens of thousands, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters of the century. The intense seismic activity combined with poor and unregulated construction in many areas to drive fatalities....

See how a 2018 fire in Paradise, California, exposed the limits of emergency coordination

This Frontline documentary shows how the Camp Fire stretched and ultimately overwhelmed the complex web of agencies involved in emergency response, including fire suppression, 911 dispatch, law enforcement, and emergency management, with catastrophic results.

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.

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.

The strongest recorded geomagnetic storm in history created auroras near the equator

On Sept. 1, 1859, the Carrington Event—named after the astronomer who observed the preceding solar flare—saw a massive coronal mass ejection strike Earth, disrupting telegraph systems, sparking electrical fires, and reportedly illuminating the night sky enough to allow newspapers to be read at night.

Thunderquakes—seismic waves created when lightning strikes the ground—have enabled scientists to image underground environments near Earth's surface by detecting vibrations along subterranean fiber-optic cables.

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