Countries around the Pacific Rim are seeking ways to link their national knowledge base to regional and global advances in science. One motivation for this greater interconnectedness is the region’s vulnerability to geohazards such as earthquakes and tsunamis – the Pacific Rim is not known as the Ring of Fire for nothing. In 2009, Samoa suffered a submarine earthquake of a magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter Scale, the strongest earthquake recorded that year. The subsequent tsunami caused substantial damage and loss of life in Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga.