by Martin W. Schwartz

Created on: March 26, 2007   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

There are three types of ocean waves:

1) Normal waves caused by the action of wind on the surface of the water and accentuated by the gravitational pull of the Moon.

2) Rogue waves, also called freak waves. Their exact causes are unknown but it is believed they may propagate from storms, high surface winds, subtle shifts in the ocean seabed, gravitational and magnetic variations in the Earth's crust, and possibly an alignment of the planets and the moon that produce intensified gravitational effects. These waves can arise suddenly, can be more than 100 feet high, and can damage or destroy ships at sea.

3) Tsunami or sea waves, which are generated by large shifts in the seabed, usually as the result of an earthquake or explosive volcanic eruption. A special type of tsunami, known as a Mega-Tsunami can be caused by the action of a sudden landslide of large size into the sea, such as happened in Tulia Bay, Alaska, in 1957, that produced a 1,000 ft wave witnessed by several people including two on a boat who rode it our and survived. While an earthquake generated tsunami can reach a maximum height of about 100 feet at the shoreline, a landslide generated mega-tsunami can be any height, depending on the volume of water displaced by the land in-falling.

It has been theorized that if the La Palmas volcano in the Canary Islands collapses into the Atlantic Ocean, it will generate a 1,500 ft high mega-tsunami that will flood the entire East Coast of the U.S.A., as far inland as 20 miles, destroying cities like New York, Boston and Miami. Some scientists believe this is inevitable and can happen at anytime from today up to thousands of years in the future. However this is a hotly debated theory, so don't move out of town yet!.

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