The 2014 Aleutian Islands earthquake occurred on 23 June at 11:53
HDT (
UTC-9) with a
moment magnitude
The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mwg, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. was defined in a 1979 paper ...
of 7.9 and a maximum
Mercalli intensity of VIII (''Severe''). The shock occurred in the
Aleutian Islands
The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; , "land of the Aleuts"; possibly from the Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before Alaska Purchase, 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain ...
– part of the US state of
Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
– southeast of
Little Sitkin Island.
Earthquake
The earthquake was initially reported as 8.0 before it was downgraded to 7.9. The rupture was on a normal fault, at ~107 km depth. Based on the geometry of the slab, and the relative movement of the tectonic plates, the slip vector is likely to have been oblique down-dip towards the ESE. The fault plane appears to be oblique, striking NW-SE and cutting steeply into the subducting slab.
Tsunami
A tsunami warning was issued, but was soon downgraded to a tsunami advisory for much of the Aleutian Islands; however, the
hypocenter
A hypocenter or hypocentre (), also called ground zero or surface zero, is the point on the Earth's surface directly below a nuclear explosion, meteor air burst, or other mid-air explosion. In seismology, the hypocenter of an earthquake is its ...
was too deep to generate a tsunami that would affect the
Pacific basin
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
. A small non-destructive tsunami was generated, with heights of 17 cm on
Amchitka
Amchitka (; ;) is a volcanic, tectonically unstable and uninhabited
island in the Rat Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in southwest Alaska. It is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The island, with a land area of ro ...
.
See also
*
List of earthquakes in 2014
*
List of earthquakes in Alaska
This is an incomplete list of earthquakes in Alaska.
See also
* Geology of Alaska
References
{{Authority control
Earthquakes
Alaska
Earthquakes
An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's s ...
*
List of earthquakes in the United States
The following is a list of notable earthquakes and tsunamis which had their epicenter in areas that are now part of the United States with the latter affecting areas of the United States. Those in ''italics'' were not part of the United States wh ...
References
Sources
*
External links
*
M7.9 Rat Islands Earthquake of June 23, 2014 Alaska Earthquake Center (archived)
{{Earthquakes in Alaska
2014 earthquakes
2014 in Alaska
2014 tsunamis
Earthquakes in the Aleutian Islands
Aleutian Islands
The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; , "land of the Aleuts"; possibly from the Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before Alaska Purchase, 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain ...