The 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile on February 27th was the fifth largest earthquake recorded since 1900.  The earthquake and associated tsunami took the lives of more than 800 people, devastated port cities and fishing villages along the Chilean coast, and destroyed buildings, roadways, and bridges in Santiago and [...]

            The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti at 4:53 p.m. on Tuesday, January 12, was the most severe and the most destructive in that nation’s history.  The full extent of damage and loss of life is not yet known, but reports indicate many thousands dead, injured, and missing, plus hundreds of buildings completely destroyed.  [...]

The Hawaiian Islands would not be here today if it were not for the hotspot volcanoes of the mid-Pacific. There would be no Kauai, no Lanai, no Molokai, no Oahu, no Maui, and no Big Island. They were all formed by shield volcanoes fed by a constant flow of magma from a superheated pocket in [...]

A hurricane-driven storm surge can be as destructive and deadly as a major tsunami started by an undersea earthquake or exploding volcano.  In fact, tropical cyclones — called hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the eastern Pacific, and cyclones in Australia, Bangladesh, and India — have done far more damage in the past 100 years [...]