Ride a jet ski through a re-creation of an Alaska mega-tsunami with the help of science | CNN

The world’s second-tallest tsunami wave on record tore through the remote Tracy Arm fjord in Alaska last August, leaving immense destruction in its wake. Luckily, there were no people nearby. But in its aftermath, scientists immediately went to work, piecing together what happens when a mountainside collapse kicks off a mega-tsunami and no one is around to see it. This is how it happened: On August 10, at 5:30 in the morning, an entire mountainside at the mouth of the receding South Sawyer glacier detached, falling into the ocean and producing a monster wave. At its peak, the wave raced up over 1,500 feet on the opposing wall of the fjord — a height taller than Kuala Lumpur’s twin Petronas towers. The mega-tsunami wreaked havoc across the landscape, stripping forests down to bare rock, ripping trees out by their roots and hurling boulders. It also produced a seismic vibration so strong it shook the entire planet for days. Only the second time that an effect like this has been recorded anywhere, it was caused by trapped energy from the wave sloshing around in the fjord for days following the initial event. In the months following the tsunami, a dozen scientists from the US, Ca