{"id":384250,"date":"2026-01-02T21:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/384250\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T21:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:11:09","slug":"a-satellite-tracked-a-tsunami-from-one-of-the-worlds-largest-quakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/384250\/","title":{"rendered":"A satellite tracked a tsunami from one of the world\u2019s largest quakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded jolted the seabed off Russia\u2019s Kamchatka Peninsula in late-July 2025. The tremor triggered a tsunami<\/a> that eventually travelled across the entire Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

A satellite that measures sea surface heights happened to pass over the tsunami not long after it started, providing valuable new insight into these destructive hazards.<\/p>\n

DON\u2019T MISS: Earthquakes are a risk in Canada. Here\u2019s how to stay safe<\/a><\/p>\n

Sixth-largest earthquake on record<\/p>\n

A magnitude 8.8 earthquake<\/a> struck beneath the Pacific Ocean just off the southeastern coast of Russia\u2019s Kamchatka Peninsula on July 29, 2025.<\/p>\n

\"Largest<\/p>\n

Largest Earthquakes on Record Kamchatka 2025<\/p>\n

July\u2019s powerful shock cemented its status as the world\u2019s sixth-largest earthquake ever measured, coming in just behind another quake in the same area that occurred back in 1952.<\/p>\n

The event took place where the North American plate is sliding beneath the Pacific plate. Subduction zones such as the one off the Kamchatka Peninsula are notorious for producing intense earthquakes<\/a> that can generate destructive tsunamis.<\/p>\n

A tsunami is a series of large, persistent waves caused by the sudden displacement of a body of water. Earthquakes are responsible for most of the world\u2019s tsunamis.<\/p>\n

Satellite sees a tsunami traversing the Pacific<\/p>\n

The NASA-French Surface Water and Ocean Topography<\/a> (SWOT) satellite happened to orbit over the region just in time to collect sea surface height data on the 2025 Pacific tsunami.<\/p>\n

A recent study published in The Seismic Record<\/a> analyzed the data and revealed some important insights.<\/p>\n

\"Pacific<\/p>\n

Pacific Tsunami SWOT Satellite July 2025<\/p>\n

RELATED: When and where could a tsunami happen in the Atlantic Ocean?<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe SWOT observations provided an unprecedented view of tsunami propagation, revealing the complexity of the waveforms, including dispersion patterns at scales that traditional altimeters could not resolve,\u201d the authors said.<\/p>\n

One discovery is that the 2025 earthquake was a \u201crerupture\u201d of the same fault that produced the even more powerful magnitude 9.0 earthquake back in 1952.<\/p>\n

This means it\u2019s possible for large earthquakes to happen in the same area within decades, rather than centuries apart, which could rewrite how experts and officials perform risk assessments and prepare for major disasters in the future.<\/p>\n

\"How<\/p>\n

How a Tsunami Works Graphic<\/p>\n

The team also found that \u201ctsunami hazard is highly sensitive to the rupture style\u201d of the fault. In other words, an earthquake\u2019s magnitude isn\u2019t the only driving factor behind a tsunami.<\/p>\n

How the earth actually splits and moves during the quake can significantly affect the size and behaviour of tsunami waves as they travel across the ocean.<\/p>\n

The findings also prove the usefulness of tracking tsunamis from space, shedding light on \u201cthe emerging role of satellite altimetry in refining tsunami forecasts and advancing our physical understanding of tsunami dynamics,\u201d the team said.<\/p>\n

Header image created using graphics and imagery from Canva.<\/p>\n

WATCH: Why are earthquakes so hard to predict?<\/p>\n

Click here to view the video<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded jolted the seabed off Russia\u2019s Kamchatka Peninsula in late-July 2025. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,163478,163476,21787,66,163477],"class_list":{"0":"post-384250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-destructive-tsunamis","11":"tag-kamchatka-peninsula","12":"tag-pacific-ocean","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-sea-surface-heights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}