October 1, 2009 4:59 PM PDT
At 10:48 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, an earthquake with a magnitude 8.0 occurred in the Samoa Islands region. Shortly after, an intricate system of buoys, satellites, and computer networks helped the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration get out the word of potential tsunami danger to coastal communities all around the Pacific.
This tsunami propagation map from NOAA shows the height in centimeters of the wave resulting from the quake as it spread across the Pacific Ocean.
Photo by NOAA
Caption by James Martin
