NASA satellite uncovers origins of 2025 Kamchatka tsunami
NASA's SWOT satellite captured unique details of the tsunami triggered by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on July 29, 2025. Data published Thursday in Science show the event stemmed from a shallow rupture less than 10 kilometers beneath the ocean trench. This information eluded ground-based and submarine sensors alone.
An international team led by San Diego State University assistant professor Ignacio Sepúlveda identified distinct short-wavelength dispersive tsunami waves within 1,000 kilometers of the epicenter. Launched jointly by NASA and France's CNES, SWOT passed overhead 70 minutes after the quake and measured the full wave field to centimeter precision. The findings challenge the view that major tsunamis propagate as single stable waves.
Researchers linked these complex wave patterns to a shallow source near the trench, offering the first high-resolution spatial evidence of subduction zone tsunami generation. Scripps Institution of Oceanography associate professor Alice Gabriel, a coauthor, noted the data will refine physically realistic models and hazard assessments for vulnerable coasts worldwide. Prior SWOT analysis in The Seismic Record showed the rupture spanned 400 kilometers along the fault, exceeding earlier 300-kilometer predictions.
Nearby deep-water DART buoys recorded a peak-to-trough tsunami height of 1.32 meters at the closest site, but lacked resolution for the shallow slip that SWOT's wide-swath view revealed. These observations join SWOT detections of dispersive waves near the Loyalty Islands in 2023 and the Drake Passage quake in May 2025, hinting such signals occur more often than thought. The results could enhance tsunami warning systems by improving models of near-trench earthquakes, a blind spot since the 2004 Sumatra disaster.
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