The Nankai subduction zone, in southern Japan, has hosted several large magnitude 8+ earthquakes during the last three hundred years. But, how stressed is it right now?
earthquakes
Posted inResearch & Developments
Magnitude-8.8 Earthquake Strikes Western Pacific
One of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck off the eastern coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula Wednesday morning local time. Initially pegged at a magnitude-8.0, the quake was eventually upgraded to a magnitude-8.8. Adjusted magnitude estimates are not unusual for large earthquakes as more data become available.
Posted inFeatures
Wendy Bohon: Quelling Fears and Sparking Geoscience Joy
This earthquake enthusiast and science communicator wants you to know that a “whole ecosystem” of scientific careers exists outside of academia.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Earthquakes Shake Up Microbial Lake Communities
After an earthquake, a lake’s geological, chemical, and biological components get reconfigured. A new study dives into the effects of seismic shifts on the Himalayas’ Lake Cuopu.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
New Insights into How Rocks Behave Under Stress
New 3D imaging techniques show hidden patterns of stress that help explain how and why rocks break.
Posted inThe Landslide Blog
The 22 November 1815 Gejer Bali disaster
A new paper (Faral et al. 2025) provides details of a seismically-triggered landslide cascade and tsunami that killed up to 12,000 people. On 22 November 1815, a very significant landslide disaster occurred in Bali, in what is now Indonesia, killing between 10,000 and 12,000 people. A very interesting new paper (Faral et al. 2025) in […]
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Shedding Light on the Mysteries of Deep Earthquakes
By analyzing forty deep earthquakes around the world, researchers discover the key role of a dual mechanism that allows earthquakes to grow larger and release more stress.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Creep Cavitation May Lead to Earthquake Nucleation
Ultramylonites, rocks of ultrafine grainsize, bring records of nanometer-scale cavities generated at the base of seismogenic crust along Japan’s largest on‐land fault.
Posted inResearch & Developments
NOAA Datasets Will Soon Disappear
NOAA has quietly reported that they will soon decommission 14 datasets, products, and catalogs related to earthquakes and marine, coastal, and estuary science.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Isotopes Unearth History of Earthquakes in the Apennines
Dating of cosmogenic chlorine isotopes yields long-term estimates of fault activity in Italy, showing that periods of earthquakes and quiescence alternate over millennia.