Quite vulnerable. Tsunami hazard for the Pacific is higher than for other oceans because of the "Ring of Fire" - the zone of earthquakes associated with the tectonic plate boundary that bounds the Pacific. In New Zealand, scientists consider the tsunami hazard from two viewpoints - Pacific-wide events for which there will be some warning, and "near-source" tsunami generated by large offshore New Zealand earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. The list of possible local tsunami sources is long. Because tsunami research is relatively young (compared to other geological hazards), the state of knowledge about the severity and frequency of local and distant tsunamis is poor. One of the main challenges facing tsunami researchers is that evidence of tsunamis does not stay in the landscape as it is eroded by natural processes. Impacts of past tsunami are therefore difficult to identify, unless someone was around and wrote about them at the time.