- A massive 8.8 magnitude Russian earthquake triggered a rash of volcanic action.
- Russian seismologists report seven volcanoes on Kamchatka Peninsula showing activity.
- One volcano just erupted for the first time in 600 years.
A massive earthquake that struck near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula last week — one of the largest on record — has triggered eruptions and other activity in seven volcanoes in the region, according to a Russian seismology group.
The 8.8 magnitude temblor caused the peninsula to shift nearly six feet to the south and triggered activity in a chain of volcanoes, some of which have lain dormant for hundreds of years.
The Krasheninnikov Volcano saw lava flow in the last week for the first time in nearly 600 years, according to a report from ABC News, and had a major eruption on Sunday. Local officials said the last lava flow was recorded in 1463.
A Russian seismologist told local media that there is a direct link between the powerful earthquake and the fresh volcanic activity in the area that lies along Russia’s far eastern border on the Bering Sea and directly west of Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain.
“We attribute the eruptions to the earthquake, which activated the magmatic foci and provided them with additional energy,” Alexey Ozerov, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and director of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, told TASS, a state-affiliated media agency in Russia.
One of the strongest quakes on record
The earthquake was the strongest recorded since the 9.1 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan in 2011 caused a massive tsunami and meltdowns at a nuclear power plant, per the Associated Press. Japan’s nuclear plants reported no abnormalities this time.
Last week’s Russian quake occurred along the “Ring of Fire,” a series of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean and an area that accounts for about 90% of all earthquakes and most of the world’s largest. It was centered offshore, about 75 miles from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kamchatka’s regional capital. Multiple aftershocks, some as strong as 6.9 magnitude, followed.
A widespread tsunami warning following the seismic event triggered evacuation orders in Japan, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast but little damaging wave activity was reported after the incident.
The largest earthquake on record, measured at a 9.5 magnitude, occurred near Biobío, Chile, on May 22, 1960. The seismic event caused the deaths of 1,600 people, most of whom perished as the result of tsunamis triggered by the quake.
Utah quake trivia
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Utah’s Wasatch Range was produced by a series of earthquakes. The 240 mile-long Wasatch Fault is made up of several segments, each capable of producing up to a magnitude 7.5 earthquake.
During the past 6,000 years, there has been a magnitude 6.5 or greater earthquake about once every 350 years, and it has been about 350 years since the last powerful earthquake, which was on the segment of the fault near Nephi.