What is a tsunami?

Here is my finished version of what is a tsunami?

A tsunami is a series of waves or a wave train created when a body of water, an ocean or sea, is rapidly displaced on a massive scale. The disturbance vertically displaces the water column. Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions and meteorites can generate tsunamis. These waves can be generated in oceans, bays, lakes or reservoirs.

A tsunami has a very small wave height offshore (around centimetres in height) and a very long wavelength that can stretch for hundreds of kilometres between the wave crests and it but when the tsunami comes to shore it can get quite large vertically. Tsunamis can go unnoticed by boats at sea because a tsunami passing through feels like going over a hump. Fishermen in boats do not recognize it because a tsunami is not tall out in the sea but is very long and wide.

Tsunamis can travel across the ocean at speeds of up to 700kph. The speed of the tsunami waves depend on the depth of the water, so the deeper the water, the faster the tsunami. As it approaches land the shallow water acts as a brake at the front of the wave, slowing it down to around 200mph. Meanwhile the back of the wave is still travelling very fast as it catches up to the front of the wave. This causes it then to look like a giant wall of water.

These giant waves can travel for thousands of miles across the sea and still create a lethal energy that destroys people, wildlife, landscapes and even powerful enough to destroy buildings.

A tsunami is like when you throw a stone into a pond. The stone takes over the space that was previously filled with water. This movement of water disturbs the rest of the pool and produces a series of waves. Little ripples spread away from where the stone hit because the force is pushing the water away. A tsunami is like this because large waves spread from where the occurrence happened but the tsunamis are much, much larger.