1964 Alaska Earthquake

This video adapted from the Valdez Museum & Historical Archive, explores what happened during the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 through original footage, first-person accounts, and animations illustrating plate tectonics.

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Alaska Tsunami

In this video adapted from Alaska Sea Grant, discover why multiple tsunamis resulted from the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964.

Anatomy of a Tsunami

Using visual models and other graphics, this interactive activity from NOVA Online reveals details of the December 26, 2004 tsunami that collided with coasts around the Indian Ocean.

Anatomy of a Volcano

In this interactive activity from NOVA Online, explore the main features of the Nyiragongo volcano, located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and learn what risks it poses to the 500,000 people who live in its shadow.

Birth of a Tsunami

This video excerpt from NOVA: “Japan’s Killer Quake” shows how an undersea earthquake produces a tsunami.

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Build an Island

This interactive resource from NOVA Online shows how an atoll is formed from a volcanic island and describes the role coral reefs play in this process.

Cave Formation: Biogeochemical Cycles

This video segment adapted from NOVA chronicles the discoveries that led to a radical new theory in which living organisms, not just geological processes, play an active role in cave formation.

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Cave Formation: Kane Cave

This video segment adapted from NOVA describes a simple experiment that confirmed the idea that microbes can accelerate the biogeochemical process of cave formation.

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Collecting Data Below the Earth's Surface

This video segment adapted from Discovering Women demonstrates how scientists use sound waves to collect data about the structure of Earth's crust.

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Continental Drift: What's the Big Idea?

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students learn how the theory that explains the position of Earth's continents was established and later modified, and gain important insights into how science and the scientific community operate.

Dating Lava Flows on Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawaiʻi

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists search for carbonized remains of plants preserved in lava flows to find out how long it has taken rain forests on Hawaiʻi to regenerate after a volcanic eruption.

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Deep-Sea Vents and Life's Origins

Deep-sea vents are home to life forms that do not rely on the Sun's energy. They depend instead on energy from volcanoes on the ocean floor. This video segment adapted from NOVA hypothesizes that life on Earth may have begun in this extreme environment.

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Drilling to Antarctica’s Rock Core

In this video adapted from ANDRILL, find out how geoscientists get through more than a dozen football fields of ice and water in order to study the rock and sediment beneath Antarctica.

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Earth as a System

This visualization adapted from NASA maps progressive global changes onto a rotating globe. Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and biosphere are shown to be dynamic and interconnected.

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Earthquake! When Plates Collide

This video excerpt from NOVA explains the concept of plate tectonics and how it causes earthquakes.

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Earthquake Prediction

This video segment adapted from NOVA tells the tragic story of two Japanese seismologists who disagreed about the threat of earthquakes in the early twentieth century. Today, seismologists in California offer residents a probability of risk that an earthquake might occur.

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Earthquakes

Students explore the causes of earthquakes, including the role of tectonic plates, and consider the efforts scientists are making to better understand and predict these sometimes deadly events.

Earthquakes: Breaking New Ground

In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, find out how San Francisco Bay Area scientists are working to help predict when the next big one will hit.

Earthquakes: Los Angeles

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations are used to show how the hills around Los Angeles were formed by earthquakes at small thrust faults that extend outward from the larger San Andreas fault.

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Earthquakes: San Francisco

The history of earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area is plotted on a digital map and analyzed in this video segment adapted from NOVA.

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