In turtles in a tsunami i will be telling you how waves an tsunami affect turtles and their surroundings. So what is a tsunami? A tsunami is a series of very large and powerful waves that can cause great destruction. So does this affect turtles, or not? Lets find out. How are tsunami generated? A tsunami is generated when a great burst of energy disturbs the water in the ocean. The main element that causes this is an earthquake. An earthquake is generated when two or more more tectonic plates have been pressing against each other for an period of time and they cannot stand the compact pressure anymore. One of them slips, sliding up, creating what we call an earth quake.(also land slides, volcanic eruptions,dead nations can cause tsunamis). At first only a small wave bobs on the surface creating no harm. Then the energy from the compacted plates is released and the wave starts moving across the open ocean in all directions, creating the first stage, generation. The energy wave starts picking up speed, propagating towards the shore at high speeds. This, of course is know as the second stage, propagating. Last but not least, is the third stage, inundation. Inundation is when the wave has been traveling miles across the sea, and starts moving close to the shore, into the shallows. The mass of energy gets compressed together, as it gets shallower, the energy has no where else to go, but up. The wave gets higher and higher the closer it gets to shore, the set of waves start catching up to each other, showing little time between each wave where they crash on shore. Well, everyone knows what happens when a good sized tsunami hits land.....DESTRUCTION!!! The energy wave surges across the land, searching for a place to go. Energy has to go somewhere, there is NO stopping it. So what does this have to do with the turtles anyways? To answer your question, turtles are barley ever affected by tsunami at all. As we said before when a tsunami is traveling over open ocean, anything in or on the water will leisurely bob up and down as the wave passes. So we conclude that turtles are not harmed by tsunamis.