Tsunamis can savagely attack coastlines, causing devastating property damage and loss of life. Tides result from the imbalance, extraterrestrial, gravitational influences of the moon, sun, and planets. Tsunamis can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water. Waves are formed as the displaced water mass, which acts under the influence of gravity, attempts to regain its equilibrium. When large areas of the sea floor elevate or subside, a tsunami can be created.
Tsunamis travel outward in all directions from the epicenter of an earthquake.
Large vertical movements of the earth's crust can occur at plate boundaries. Plates interact along these boundaries called faults. Around the margins of the Pacific Ocean, for example, denser oceanic plates slip under continental plates in a process known as subduction. Subduction earthquakes are particularly effective in generating tsunamis. As a tsunami leaves the deep water of the Open Ocean and travels into the shallower water near the coast, it transforms.