Officials are keeping a watch on Hawaii’s shoreline and asking boaters there to secure their vessels after a large earthquake shook the Pacific and sent a tsunami into Pago Pago in American Samoa earlier today.

Slow motion tsunami

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a  tsunami watch for the Hawaiian Islands. You can read the details of the regional warnings, watches, and advisories here.

As a result, the city of  Honolulu has activated its Emergency Operations Center.

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We usually get really excited when things on Earth happen the way they should and that’s what could happen now that President Bush has made a public proposal last week. He wants all the 15 islands in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and parts of the islands in the Pacific to be granted the national-monument status, which would lead to the world’s largest marine reserve on the planet as big as Texas and Alaska combined.

“Life on Earth changes all the time, but these are like time machines that take us back to the time when humans didn’t impact coral reefs in any significant ways,” said Enric Sala, a marine ecologist and National Geographic fellow and emerging explorer.

Aerial view of a small pristine isle near Island Saipan

Large ancient lobe coral in Kingman Reef, studied by an ecologist

Rich coral ecosystem in the lush Palmyra Atoll

Gray reef sharks patrol Kingman Reef

Masked boobie in Palmyra Atoll

“These places are completely different from what we know anywhere else. They’re totally dominated by their predators. Imagine the Serengeti with five lions per wildebeest. This is Kingman Reef,” said Enric Sala

The proposal is great, but can we be sure these pristine reefs won’t be “vandalized” by fishing or other similar activities. Let’s hope so because it’s too beautiful.

All photographs by Paul Chesley/NGS