Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior.
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Discover this week's must-see night sky events, moon phases, and stunning astrophotos. Sign up for our skywatching newsletter and explore the universe with us! The landslide scar and the zone where vegetation was moved by the megatsunami are both visible in this aerial photo of Tracy Arm and South Sawyer Glacier, captured on Aug. 13, 2025.
A tsunami that struck an Alaskan fjord in 2025 sloshed higher than the height of the top floor of One World Trade Center in New York, new research shows. , found that the tsunami reached 1,578 feet up the slopes of the fjord, making it one of the tallest tsunamis ever recorded. It would have easily washed over the roof of New York's One World Trade Center, which stands 1,368 feet , not including its spire.
The study also found that the tsunami formed a standing wave, or"seiche," that sloshed back and forth in the narrow fjord for over a day. It's only the second time such a seiche has been recorded.
New York City is at major risk of flooding that could leave 4.4 million people exposed to extreme damage, study findsThe tsunami hit Tracy Arm fjord, south of Juneau, on Aug. 10, 2025, when a massive landslide dropped 2.1 billion cubic feet of rock into the fjord's waters. The fjord is the outlet for the South Sawyer Glacier, which had been on a rapid retreat.
It's not clear whether that retreat destabilized the slope or whether recent rains were more to blame, but the resulting tsunami was one of the largest on record. The only one known to be higher is a 1958 earthquake-triggered wave in Lituya Bay, Alaska, which scoured one slope to the height of 1,720 feet . Although the fjord is often visited by cruise ships, it was empty on Aug. 10.
Kayakers at the fjord's mouth, miles away, reported that their equipment was washed away by strong waves, but no one was hurt or killed by the tsunami. , a senior research associate in engineering at the University of Oxford, and his colleagues used satellite imagery and seismic data to build computer models of the tsunami. They observed long-lasting reverberations indicating that the wave splashed back and forth as a seiche.
This phenomenon was previously observed"This study shows that enclosed basins like fjords can effectively act as giant tuning forks, with the resonance determined by their shape and geometry," Monahan said in aGet the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsand France's space agency, also showed that the wave was more energetic than computer models would have predicted, Monahan said.
Hidden slippery clay on seafloor may have worsened devastating 2011 tsunami in Japan Cruise lines have canceled their incursions into the fjord this year due to the possible risk of another slide. Study co-authoroccurred at an increasing rate in the days to hours before the landslide, signaling that this mass of rock was starting to crack.
Many seismic monitoring stations provide data in real-time, so this gives us some optimism that we can turn what we have learned into a warning system.
"Shugar, D. H., Barnhart, K. R., Berdahl, M., Caplan-Auerbach, J., Ekström, G., Fathian, A., Geertsema, M., Hicks, S. P., Higman, B., Jensen, E. K., Karasözen, E., Lynett, P., Lyons, J., Monahan, T., Roe, G., Svennevig, K., Toney, L., Van Wyk De Vries, M., & West, M. E. . A 481-meter-high landslide-tsunami in a cruise ship–frequented Alaska fjord. Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior.
She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
New York City is at major risk of flooding that could leave 4.4 million people exposed to extreme damage, study findsMissing megaflood: How did the Mediterranean transform from a salt-filled bowl to a deep sea if it wasn't a cataclysmic deluge?
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