Someone recently asked, “Why doesn’t the Alaska Earthquake Center report how long an earthquake lasts?” We could ask in reply, “Do you mean the earthquake itself or the shaking you feel under your feet?” Let’s dive into the process of an earthquake

Just a little heads up…

The Alaska Earthquake Center website and data processing will be shut down during University of Alaska Fairbanks planned maintenance on:

“Attention Chevak, this is an Earthquake Alert: Please take cover!”

The Shake Challenge Symposium, held March 4-5, 2023, was the major culminating event for participants in the T3 Shake Ambassador Club.

The M5.4 earthquake on Sunday morning March 19th was widely felt in Kenai Peninsula communities and as far as the MatSu valley (Fig. 1). With a depth of 40.6 miles, it is likely that this earthquake occurred in the Pacific Plate.

Alaska had a relatively quiet 2022 as far as earthquakes go. Overall, the Alaska Earthquake Center reported 47,045 seismic events in Alaska and neighboring regions in 2022 (Figure 1).

Have you ever wondered how seismic analysts locate earthquakes? Or maybe why earthquake solutions change over time? With the Alaska seismic monitoring network, we record an average of 100+ events daily.

Historically, the Alaska Earthquake Center has focused on seismic data. We currently maintain more than 250 stations across Alaska with broadband and/or strong motion seismometers.

"Could the seismograph detect how strong the waves crash against our island?" asked a  student at Shishmaref School.

On November 3, 2002, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake shook Interior Alaska for two to three minutes, the largest inland earthquake in North America in 150 years.

Natalia Ruppert came to Alaska planning to stay for a semester. More than two decades later, she’s built a career at the Alaska Earthquake Center.

The M4.8 earthquake that was felt widely on Sunday evening occurred along a well-known fault system about 40 miles west of Fairbanks (Fig. 1).

Mitch Robinson is retiring after 33 years at the Geophysical Institute. Throughout those decades he has been a quiet, steadfast part of the UAF and GI community.

Seismicity for 2021 has been analyzed, quality controlled, and cataloged (figure 1). Despite the largest U.S.

Noise is all around us, all the time. Vibrations in the earth are much the same. Natural and anthropogenic (or man-made) vibrations are a constant source of noise that is recorded on seismic sensors around the world.

Tonight’s M4.9 earthquake at 9:56pm rattled the Interior, with felt reports from Fairbanks, North Pole, Salcha, Nenana, Healy, Cantwell, Delta Junction, Chugiak, Anchorage,

From Mars research to earthquakes in Alaska, postdoctoral researcher Ezgi Karasözen has covered a lot of ground.

At 10:15pm Alaska time on July 28, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck offshore of the Alaska Peninsula, the largest U.S. earthquake in 50 years.

Many people in Interior Alaska felt the M4.7 earthquake near Salcha tonight, July 22, 2021, at 8:20 pm AKDT (Figure 1).

The magnitude 6.1 earthquake late in the evening on Sunday May 30 occurred about 100 km, or 60 miles, east of Talkeetna and was felt across much of mainland Alaska.

At 9:10am on April 8, Alaskans from the Kenai Peninsula to Fairbanks had a little shakeup to start their day when a magnitude 5.5 earthquake hit.

The largest and third largest earthquakes worldwide in 2020 were both in Alaska: the M7.8 Simeonof Earthquake and its M7.6 aftershock.

When people report to the Earthquake Center that they have felt an earthquake on social media, we encourage them to submit a Did You Feel It?

A new collaborative project will make it possible for scientists to use real-time seismic, weather, and infrasound (sounds below levels that humans can hear) observations to track a suite of phenomena ranging from earthquakes to wildfires to sea ic

During 2019-2020, the Alaska Earthquake Center underwent an unprecedented expansion of our permanent seismic monitoring network.

On October 19, 2020 a magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook the ground in the vicinity of the July 22, 2020 M7.8 Simeonof earthquake aftershock region (Figure 1).

On July 22, 2020, a major M7.8 earthquake struck the Shumagin Islands region of the Aleutians, just south of Simeonof Island.

Running a statewide seismic network requires expertise you might not immediately associate with earthquake research.

Large earthquakes, like the recent M7.8 in Alaska, can be seen at seismometers around the world! When an earthquake occurs, seismic energy travels in all directions, much like ripples in a pond.

This evening’s M7.8 earthquake [7/21/20, 10:12 PM AKDT] occurred on the well-known subduction zone interface off the Alaska Peninsula. Strong shaking has been reported from Perryville and Sand Point to King Cove and Cold Bay.

Seismic activity near Mt. Ogden and Wright Glacier, about 40 miles east of Juneau, picked up starting on July 10, 2020 (Figure 1). Juneau residents may have felt some of these quakes. 

We use the phrase “magnitude of completeness” often when referring to our understanding of seismicity in a region or following a sequence of earthquakes. This value is a simplistic assessment of a catalog of earthquakes.

“As far as earthquakes go, for everyone in Alaska, there is someone looking out for you 24/7,” said Ken Macpherson, who manages the Alaska Earthquake Center’s data analyst team.

We are getting questions about current earthquake activity in the western Aleutians—and with good reason. There are actually two different sequences of earthquakes unfolding right now in the Andreanof and Rat Islands.

Seismicity in Alaska had another stand-out year in 2019. With a total of 50,289 reported earthquakes, 2019 finished as a runner up to the record-breaking 2018 (figure 1). The earthquake depths ranged between 0 and 165 miles (265 km).

On Tuesday morning a magnitude 3.7 earthquake occurred about 16 miles SW of Ester, rattling folks across the Fairbanks region.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the M7.1 Anchorage Earthquake on November 30, 2018, we reflect on the scientific and societal impacts of the earthquake.

Natasha Kozyreva (or Natasha K. as her colleagues call her) came to Fairbanks in 2005.

You may be surprised at the diversity of sensors that are able to detect seismic waves.

After an earthquake, you’ll often hear a seismologist say something like “A moderate earthquake has occurred in the southcentral region of Alaska.” But what does that mean?

Registration is open for this retrospective on the M7.1 earthquake last November. This is a diverse gathering of professionals who are vested and interested in helping shape the lessons learned from this event.

We usually keep budget discussions offline, but a lot of people have asked us how the governor’s recent line-item veto of USArray earthquake

We don’t usually link to videos showing tragedies like this, but Alaskans should know what last September’s Palu tsunami looked like.

Our staff spend much of their time each summer working in the field on the stations that make up our seismic network, but the work of maintaining these stations is not limited to the summer or even to the field.

If you've paid much attention to earthquakes in Alaska over the last few years, you've probably heard the phrase “earthquake swarm.” In 2014, a swarm near Noatak rattled residents with five magnitude 5.3-5.7 earthquakes spread out over two months.

Long gone are times when seismic arrivals were read off paper or film recordings by human eyes and manually processed with pen and paper.

On July 28, 2021 tsunami warning sirens sounded in coastal towns along southern Alaska and the Alaska Peninsula.

If you've ever read one of our old information releases, you might have noticed the phrase "The magnitude and location may change slightly as additional data are received and processed." The words probably make sense, but the reasons are a bit subt

The burning question on the minds of many residents in Southcentral Alaska is, “When will the aftershocks stop?” This is a tricky question, but enough time has passed since the November 30 magnitude 7.1 earthquake for us to make an informed estimat

We recorded more than 55,000 earthquakes in Alaska last year. We would give you an exact figure, but we're still counting.

Since the Nov. 30 Anchorage earthquake, we’ve fielded far more questions about the aftershock sequence than we have about the magnitude 7.1 mainshock that started them.

Here is a cross-section through Friday’s earthquake and subsequent aftershocks. The mainshock symbol marks where the M7.1 earthquake began.

Updated December 2, 2018

If you were one of the thousands of people visiting our website this morning or using one of the numerous services that repost our data (various phone apps, USGS, etc.) you may have seen listings for two magnitude 5 earthquakes at the same time nea

Knowing where to go during an evacuation is crucial to survival when you are in a tsunami hazard zone. But how do emergency managers and planners decide where the safe zones are and where to stage assembly areas in a community?

For two weeks in July I was onboard the Research Vessel Sikuliaq as an apply-to-sail participant of the

When we feel an earthquake, we can't know right away where it happened. A person occupies one spot, and earthquakes can happen all around us, at different depths.

On Sunday morning at 6:58 Alaska time, we recorded a magnitude 6.4 earthquake 52 miles southwest of Kaktovik. It was, by a wide margin, the largest earthquake ever recorded north of the Brooks Range in Alaska.

In early 2016, UAF Assistant Professor Dr.

Not only do our remote seismic stations need to survive temperatures far below zero, heavy snows, ice, winds, rains, lightning strikes, and warm, muddy summer months, our stations must also withstand abuse from all variety o

Lituya Bay

A flying boat dropped Paddy Sherman’s mountaineering expedition at Lituya Bay on June 17, 1958.

Halfway through 2018, January's magnitude 7.9 earthquake in the Gulf of Alaska remains the year's largest quake worldwide.

For decades, there have been tantalizing clues about how we might know when an earthquake will happen. Sometimes, clusters of small earthquakes called foreshock sequences come in the days or weeks before a large earthquake.

Alaska's most recent deadly tsunami struck without warning on November 3, 1994. Witnesses described new steel sheet piles snapping in half as the railway dock, which was being refurbished, suddenly slid away from the shore.

With only a handful of known active faults across northeast Alaska, you might not expect much in the way of earthquake activity. You’d be mistaken.

Two of our field crew, blessed with adequate weather, made the 180-mile flight from Kodiak to Chirikof Island last week. Once there, they replaced two aging seismometers, measured battery voltages and radio signal strength, and then checked on the

We spend a lot of time at the Earthquake Center anticipating what will happen during large earthquakes. For earthquakes occurring off the coast, tsunamis are one of our greatest hazards.

When a large earthquake occurs, geophysicists have many tools at their disposal to determine the properties of the fault (or faults) that ruptured during the earthquake.

You may have noticed that we've launched an updated version of our recent events page. 

The goals of the revamp were twofold:

Every year at this time, I take a few moments to reflect on the March 27, 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake and tsunamis.

At 12:31am on January 23, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck in the Gulf of Alaska about 180 miles southeast of Kodiak Island (see figure 1).

Alaska was rocked by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake just after midnight on Tuesday, January 23, 2018.

Helena Buurman

Recently, many national news outlets picked up a story about the earthquake and tsunami threat posed by Alaska’s Shumagin Gap. The headlines were frightening.

The magnitude 7.7 earthquake on July 17, 2017 in the Komandorskie Islands is the largest of its kind recorded in the region.

After a long spell with few earthquakes strong enough to be felt, over the last ten days we've had 3 earthquakes larger than magnitude 6, seven larger than M5, and more than fifty larger than M4. 

Earthquakes beneath and around Denali are very common and in fact encapsulate three stories of Alaska seismicity in one location. Last night’s (Tuesday 31 January) magnitude 5.2 earthquake is just one part of the Denali regional story.

UAF's Carl Tape will be speaking on Tuesday night in Fairbanks about his research into an elusive 1904 magnitude 7.3 earthquake that happened, we now believe, somewhere near Lake Minchumina. This is a detective story.

We have completed processing of earthquakes for 2016. Here are some numbers:

In response to user feedback, we have added a simplified list of recent earthquakes to our website. 

Hundreds of seismic stations send data continuously to our lab from places scattered across Alaska.

Please check out Mike's Alaska Dispatch piece, "Quake in Italy should remind Alaskans of our own peril."

Many of you have noticed the significant swarm of small quakes occurring about 8 miles west of Mt. Spurr. Since June 11, there have been hundreds of earthquake-like events with magnitudes up to 2.4.

Pavlof volcano began a new eruption on March 27 with little advance warning.

At 1:41 Monday morning, many in the Anchorage and Kenai regions woke to the shaking of a magnitude 4.2 earthquake centered 13 miles west of Hope.

Most people can visualize how earthquakes are generated at plate boundaries, where one plate grinds against or collides with another.

Carl Tape's simulation of the M7.1 Iniskin Earthquake is generating a lot of interest, in part because it appears to reflect many people's experience of the earthquake.

Four hundred miles from the epicenter, at 1:30 in the morning, many in Fairbanks did not feel the earthquake at all. For those who did, it lasted for a long time and came as two distinct, widely separated shocks.

A damaging magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurred at 1:30am Sunday, 60 miles west of Homer. So far there are no reports of injuries.

The recent nuclear test in North Korea presents a quandary for seismologists. The political posturing and global tension these events create is significant. And yet scientifically, they are fascinating.

As we head into winter, seismic events generated by glaciers—so-called icequakes—have quieted down for the season. Each year, hundreds of these icequakes are large enough to be caught by our standard earthquake detection routines.

Fall might not be the most prudent time for a surveying trip to the Aleutians, but Zeb Maharrey and I lucked out with some beautiful days and only a few periods of cold, blowing rain.

We are thrilled to introduce a completely redesigned website for the Alaska Earthquake Center.