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EnchantedLearning.com
ALL ABOUT OCEANS AND SEAS
Introduction Why is the Ocean Salty? What Causes Waves? Tsunami The Water Cycle Ocean Animal Printouts Ocean Crafts
Why is the Ocean Blue? What Causes Tides? Hurricane Undersea Explorers Coral Reefs Intertidal Zone Sunlit (Euphotic) Zone Ocean Printouts

What Causes Waves?
The winds cause waves on the surface of the ocean (and on lakes). The wind transfers some of its energy to the water, through friction between the air molecules and the water molecules. Stronger winds (like storm surges) cause larger waves. You can make your own miniature waves by blowing across the surface of a pan of water.

Waves of water do not move horizontally, they only move up and down (a wave does not represent a flow of water). You can see a demonstration of this by watching a floating buoy bob up and down with a wave; it does not, however, move horizontally with the wave.

Tsunamis (sometimes called tidal waves) are different from surface waves; they are usually caused by underwater earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or landslides.

Related Pages:
tsunami

Tsunami

Read about tsunamis: how they form and propagate, what the name tsunami means, and the speed and sizes of tsunamis.
Hokusai wave print
The Great Wave Off Kanagawa

Color a page of the Great Wave Off Kanagawa by the Japanese painter and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai (from the 1700s).


EnchantedLearning.com
ALL ABOUT OCEANS AND SEAS
Introduction Why is the Ocean Salty? What Causes Waves? Tsunami The Water Cycle Ocean Animal Printouts Ocean Crafts
Why is the Ocean Blue? What Causes Tides? Hurricane Undersea Explorers Coral Reefs Intertidal Zone Sunlit (Euphotic) Zone Ocean Printouts


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