Museum of Science and Industry

This giant Deep Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoy was part of a tsunami warning system that consists of almost 40 buoys located in oceans around the world. Pressure sensors located thousands of feet below the buoy on the bottom of the ocean detect the tsunami as it passes by. The sensors relay data about the tsunami up to the buoy, which then passes the data on to a satellite and finally on to Tsunami Warning Centers.

On November 15, 2006, this buoy recorded a tsunami resulting from an 8.3-magnitude earthquake in Russia's Kuril Islands. During a storm in May of 2008, it broke free from its mooring and was deemed “Lost at Sea” by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It was found almost a year later washed up on a beach on Kodiak Island, Alaska, over 400 miles from its original location.