- 3 hours ago
The Pacific Ring of Fire, the horseshoe-shaped zone encircling the ocean that's home to 75% of the world's volcanoes and 90% of its earthquakes, is showing heightened seismic unrest as 2025 draws to a close. Just days ago, a powerful magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck off northeastern Japan on December 8, triggering tsunami warnings, evacuations for tens of thousands, and widespread tremors felt hundreds of miles away. This latest event follows a year of intense activity—including a massive 8.8 quake off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula in July and numerous volcanic eruptions across Indonesia, Alaska, and beyond—raising urgent questions about what's driving this fiery surge and what shocking developments could unfold next.
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00:00Before an earthquake shakes the ground, something sneaky might happen first.
00:05A slow, quiet movement with no shaking at all.
00:08No one is aware that right under their feet, the land is preparing to tremble violently,
00:14wreaking havoc, bringing destruction and devastation.
00:17A new study shows that such a slow creep might be how earthquakes begin.
00:22To figure this out, scientists didn't start with giant pieces of the Earth.
00:26Instead, they went into a lab and used clear plastic sheets called plexiglass.
00:32They pushed two sheets of plexiglass sideways against each other,
00:36just like how tectonic plates, huge chunks of Earth's crust, push against each other underground.
00:42As they pushed, the plastic cracked, kind of like what the Earth does during an earthquake.
00:48And even though it was plastic and not rock, the physics, the way things break and move, was the same.
00:56Earthquakes happen when two tectonic plates try to slide past each other, but they get stuck.
01:01The edges between them don't move easily, because of something called friction.
01:06It's kind of like when your shoes grip the ground.
01:08Over time, the plates keep trying to move, and stress builds up.
01:13Think of it like bending a stick.
01:14At first, it doesn't break.
01:16But if you keep pushing, it will eventually snap.
01:19The spot where the plates are stuck is called a fault.
01:23And there's a thin, brittle part in that fault.
01:26By brittle, I mean that it doesn't bend.
01:29It just breaks.
01:31Here's how it happens.
01:32First, a tiny crack forms.
01:35It's small and moves slowly.
01:36There's no shaking yet.
01:38But something is already happening under the surface.
01:41The crack spreads, building up more energy.
01:44When it finally reaches the edge of the brittle zone, boom, it speeds up, suddenly racing forward
01:50really fast, almost as fast as sound.
01:53And that's when the Earth starts to shake.
01:56So scientists decided to find out how that very first crack starts.
02:00They conducted their experiment, whose setup was similar to a type of fault in the real
02:05world called a strike-slip fault, like the San Andreas fault in California.
02:11Even though the materials, plastic versus rock, are different, the way cracks form and
02:16move is exactly the same.
02:18The experiment has helped scientists understand that earthquakes don't always start suddenly.
02:24Sometimes, there's a slow, quiet start, like a warning sign before the big quake.
02:29This early stage of an earthquake is called a nucleation front.
02:34It's like a seed of a crack, gently creeping through the material long before any actual
02:40rupture happens.
02:41This quiet and slow movement doesn't release energy into the surroundings.
02:45At first, scientists thought of cracks as simple one-dimensional lines, like a straight
02:50tear in paper.
02:52But something didn't add up.
02:54The slow-moving nucleation front wasn't behaving like a normal, fast-moving crack.
02:59And it wasn't clear why or how it suddenly sped up and became an earthquake.
03:04The answer came when scientists realized they had to think in two dimensions instead of one.
03:10Instead of imagining the crack as just a fine line, they began to think of it as a patch,
03:15like a growing circle, that starts at the surface where two materials touch.
03:20As this patch spreads out, more material along its edge has to break.
03:25The important thing here is that the energy needed to break the material is related to
03:30how long the patch's edge, or perimeter, becomes.
03:33The bigger the perimeter, the more energy it takes to keep breaking.
03:37That's why this patch moves slowly at first.
03:40It doesn't yet cause the violent shaking we associate with an earthquake.
03:44Because it moves without sending shaking waves, this stage is called aseismic.
03:50Eventually, the growing cracked patch spreads beyond the special brittle zone, where the
03:56materials are stuck.
03:57Outside this zone, the energy needed to keep breaking the material doesn't increase anymore.
04:02Instead, there's now extra energy building up, more than what's needed to keep the crack
04:08growing slowly.
04:09This extra energy doesn't stay quiet.
04:11It suddenly powers the crack to move much faster, turning it into a full-speed rupture.
04:17That's the moment when the earthquake begins and the ground starts to shake.
04:22These findings help explain how earthquakes might start off slow and silent before quickly
04:27turning dangerous.
04:28They show that small, slow cracks can suddenly transform into powerful, fast-moving ruptures
04:34if the conditions are right.
04:36Scientists believe that they can learn to detect the aseismic stage before a crack speeds up.
04:42It might one day be possible to predict earthquakes, or at least understand the warning signs better.
04:48Now, even though earthquakes are only the third most common type of natural disaster, they
04:53cause the highest number of fatalities.
04:55NASA plays an important role in studying earthquakes by using satellites that orbit the Earth.
05:01These satellites collect data and images that show how the ground changes after an earthquake.
05:07For example, they can detect when the land shifts, rises, sinks, or cracks.
05:12These surface changes help scientists learn more about the strength and impact of earthquakes.
05:18NASA's satellites can also track changes in nighttime lights.
05:22If a city goes dark after a quake, that's a clear sign that the area may have lost power
05:27and could need help.
05:29Now, how about we talk about the most common earthquake myths, like the one about megaquakes?
05:34Some people really worry about super-huge earthquakes, but there's a limit to how big they can get.
05:41The size of an earthquake depends on the size of the fault where it happens.
05:45A longer and deeper fault can cause a bigger earthquake.
05:49For example, the San Andreas Fault in California is long, about 800 miles, but not very deep, around 10 to
05:5612 miles.
05:57This makes earthquakes bigger than magnitude 8.3 on that fault very unlikely.
06:03The biggest earthquake ever recorded happened in Chile in 1960.
06:08It had a magnitude of 9.5 and occurred on a huge fault that was almost 1,000 miles long
06:14and 150 miles wide.
06:17Technically, there's no set limit on the magnitude scale.
06:20But an earthquake bigger than magnitude 12 would need a fault larger than Earth, which just isn't possible.
06:27Now, earthquakes can happen near the surface or deep underground.
06:30Most occur in Earth's crust or upper mantle, down to about 500 miles deep.
06:36But the deepest ones happen only at subduction zones, places where one part of Earth's crust slides under another.
06:43In California, almost all earthquakes happen in the top 15 miles of the crust.
06:49One exception is the Cascadia subduction zone in Northern California, which continues up through Oregon, Washington, and Canada.
06:57Another misconception is that the ground can open during an earthquake.
07:01But usually, that only happens in movies.
07:04A giant crack opening and swallowing things up during an earthquake is just fiction.
07:09In real life, the ground on either side of a fault slides past each other.
07:14It doesn't pull apart or open wide.
07:16Small cracks or holes can happen during landslides or ground failures, but not along the actual fault line itself.
07:23Faults don't open up, because if they did, there'd be no friction.
07:27And without friction, there wouldn't be an earthquake at all.
07:31Now, some people think California could break off and sink into the ocean during an earthquake.
07:36But that's not how it happens.
07:38The ocean floor is just lower land with water above it.
07:41California can't fall in.
07:43What's really happening is that southwestern California is slowly sliding north toward Alaska along the San Andreas Fault.
07:51The Pacific Plate, which California sits on, is moving about 2 inches per year, about as fast as your fingernails
07:58grow.
07:59So, in about 15 million years, Los Angeles and San Francisco could be neighbors.
08:05And in 70 million years, Los Angeles might be sitting near Alaska.
08:09I can't wait.
08:11People often wonder whether an aftershock can be bigger than the earthquake itself.
08:16Aftershocks are smaller earthquakes that happen in the same area after a larger one.
08:21They're like our planet's way of settling down after the main shock.
08:25But if an aftershock turns out to be bigger than the first earthquake,
08:29then we call the bigger one the main shock and the earlier one becomes a foreshock.
08:34About 5-10% of earthquakes in California are followed by a stronger one within a week.
08:40It's also possible for two quakes in the same area to be about the same size.
08:45However, very large earthquakes are rare.
08:48So, it's even rarer to see two huge ones happen close together.
08:56It was in the year 2014 when a satellite snapped a picture of something unusual in the middle of the
09:02Pacific Ocean.
09:03It was a giant, almost perfect ring floating all by itself.
09:08It was an eerie sight.
09:09This formation showed up thousands of miles southwest of Hawaii and was about 280 miles wide.
09:19The huge ring was spotted by NASA's Terra satellite with the help of a special camera called MODIS.
09:28Later, after examining the images, scientists realized that the ring was made out of perfectly shaped clouds.
09:35Even though clouds like this aren't super rare, it's not common to see one that big and completely on its
09:41own.
09:41Normally, such clouds show up in groups, not just hanging out solo in the middle of nowhere.
09:47The ring is made of puffy, cumulus clouds.
09:50It turned out that it had been shaped by something called a Rayleigh-Bernard convection cell.
09:56It's a fancy-schmancy way of saying that the clouds formed when warm air arose and cooler air sank, creating
10:02a circular pattern.
10:04Now, there are two types of such cloud cells.
10:07One is a closed cell, where cold air sinks around the edges and clouds pop up in the middle.
10:13The other is an open cell, where cold air sinks in the center and clouds form around the outside.
10:20And that giant ring floating over the ocean was exactly a closed cell, hence its cool shape.
10:26Interestingly, such cloud patterns usually look like a bunch of hexagons packed together.
10:31You know, like a beehive in the sky.
10:33But this one was out there all by itself, which made it even more eye-catching.
10:38Now, let's take a look at how the ring's formation happened in detail, shall we?
10:43At one point, the sun heated up the water or land, warming the air above it.
10:48That warm air got lighter and started rising.
10:51Cumulus clouds formed.
10:53Maybe it even rained a bit.
10:54When that rain came down, it cooled the air beneath the clouds.
10:58That cooler air then sank and spread out in all directions.
11:02But when it ran into the surrounding warmer air, it pushed the warm air upward again.
11:07That's how the ring of clouds formed around the original spot.
11:12This whole thing happened just south of the intertropical convergence zone,
11:16a region near the equator where trade winds meet and often cause thunderstorms and heavy rain.
11:22That particular location probably helped with the formation of this cool cloud pattern, too.
11:27Now, take a look at the right side of the satellite image.
11:30The ocean looks super shiny there, almost like silver.
11:33That shiny effect is called sun glint.
11:36It happens when sunlight reflects directly off the ocean's surface and hits the satellite camera just right.
11:43It kind of turns the sea into a ginormous swirling mirror.
11:46The cool thing is that the texture of the water, whether it's smooth or choppy, changes how that sun glint
11:52looks.
11:53Most of the time, the wind stirs up the surface, creating waves.
11:57These waves normally scatter the sunlight in different directions.
12:01But some of that light still hits the satellite, so the area looks shiny.
12:05But sometimes, if the water is super calm or there's a break in the wave pattern,
12:10it can create darker patches where less light gets reflected back.
12:14It gives sun glint zones a strange, patchy look.
12:18So, if you notice really dark spots in satellite images, keep in mind that they might not be shadows or
12:24oil spills.
12:25Most likely, they're just signs of how the wind and waves are behaving on the surface of the ocean.
12:31Now, at the same time, it's not just weak winds that can smooth out the water.
12:35According to an oceanography professor from the University of South Florida,
12:39other stuff, like freshwater, shipwakes, and even natural ocean movement,
12:44such as underwater waves or currents, can change the water's texture too.
12:48And all these phenomena can mess with how the sunlight reflects,
12:52which, in turn, can cause weird patterns in the images.
12:56Some of the darker lines you can see, for example, inside places like Delaware Bay or Chesapeake Bay,
13:02might be freshwater mixed with things like algae, dissolved plant material, or even natural oils.
13:09But those patches aren't usually as big as the giant dark blob they saw off Delmarva.
13:14It happened on May 6, 2023, when the ocean just east of the Delmarva Peninsula was super calm.
13:21There was barely any wind.
13:22So, the surface of the water was all smooth and glassy, like a giant mirror.
13:27And the angle was just right to make it look dark.
13:31Now, even though these sunglin effects make for some stunning satellite pictures,
13:35they can be annoying for scientists who are trying to study the color of the ocean
13:39or track things like phytoplankton blooms.
13:42Basically, sunglin can cover up the stuff they actually want to see.
13:46So, to work around that, scientists and engineers have built tools to either fix the data afterward
13:52or design sensors that avoid the glare in the first place.
13:55For example, the new ocean color instrument on NASA's upcoming PACE mission
14:00is designed to tilt just enough to dodge the worst of the sun's reflection.
14:05Oh, by the way, NASA scientist Ralph Kahn reminds us that our eyes can deceive us,
14:11judging brightness based on what's around it.
14:14So, even a dark patch in an image might actually be pretty bright.
14:18It just looks dark compared to the shiny parts nearby.
14:22Now, let's tilt our heads back to the night sky.
14:26See that weird glowing spiral?
14:28Looks pretty extraterrestrial, doesn't it?
14:30Well, chances are, it was just a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket doing its thing.
14:36When these rockets launch satellites into orbit, they sometimes dump leftover fuel once they're
14:41high up in the atmosphere.
14:43That fuel freezes and starts spinning around as the rocket moves.
14:47It looks like a mini ice tornado in space.
14:49But what makes it look even crazier is sunlight.
14:52Even if it's dark where you are, the rocket's way up high where the sun can still hit it.
14:57The light reflects off the icy fuel spiral, making it glow.
15:02Just a bit of night sky drama, but nothing mysterious.
15:07Now, let's admit it, you aren't likely to see a real-life flying saucer.
15:11What you can see, though, is a lenticular cloud, which looks pretty much the same if you ask me.
15:17These clouds pop up high in the sky, usually around mountains, where moist air flows over them just right.
15:24Even though the wind is moving super fast, these clouds just kind of hang there, totally still,
15:30like someone has parked them there.
15:31They're usually perfectly shaped, smooth, and saucer-like.
15:35And still, it's just nature showing off again.
15:46Another kind of weird stuff you might see in the sky is space junk.
15:50When satellites stop working, a lot of them are just left behind, floating around.
15:55Eventually, they slow down because of atmospheric drag and start falling back to Earth.
16:00When they do, they light up the sky like massive fireballs.
16:04Sometimes, it can last for nearly a minute.
16:06As the pieces burn up, the different materials they contain can create colorful streaks in the sky.
16:12And once in a while, chunks actually survive the trip and crash land on Earth.
16:18The leftover bits are often twisted and scorched.
16:21And they look so strange that people sometimes think they're wreckage of spaceships from another planet.
16:27But nope, just another piece of our own space clutter coming home.
16:32Now, look at this.
16:33A plane is flying straight toward the horizon and leaving behind a long contrail.
16:39You know, that artificial cloud from engine exhaust?
16:42And in some cases, it can look like something is falling from the sky.
16:46The wind can blow those trails wider, making the whole picture seem even more dramatic
16:51because it looks like smoke from a crashing object.
16:54Add in the red glow from a setting sun, and, well, it looks like something is on fire and plummeting
17:00to Earth.
17:01Plus, if sunlight reflects off the bottom of the plane just right,
17:05it can look like there's a glowing core in the crashing cloud.
17:08But the giveaway is the speed.
17:10Slow.
17:11Real falling objects, especially from space, zip across the sky at thousands of miles per hour.
17:17So, if it's barely moving, it's probably just a plane.
17:21Nothing to worry about.
17:22Wink wink.
17:26On January 26, 1700, one of the biggest earthquakes in history hit off the coast of the United States.
17:34It had a magnitude of 9, which puts it in the top 10 most powerful earthquakes ever recorded.
17:41This earthquake triggered a huge tsunami and changed the coastline all the way from southern British Columbia down to northern
17:49California forever.
17:51Back then, the area wasn't very popular, but thanks to some clever research, scientists figured out exactly what happened that
17:59day by looking at old geological records, tree rings, and even some history from Japan.
18:06On the same day as the earthquake, a massive tsunami also hit Japan's eastern coast.
18:12For a long time, no one connected the two.
18:15But in the 1980s and 90s, researchers realized the tsunami in Japan had been caused by the earthquake in the
18:22Pacific Northwest.
18:23They were also able to pinpoint the exact day, January 26, 1700.
18:30They even found old trees in coastal Washington that had all perished around the winter of 1700, which matched up
18:38perfectly with the timing of the earthquake.
18:42The earthquake came from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a fault where the Juan de Fuca Plate slides under the North
18:49American Plate.
18:50This fault stretches about 700 miles, from northern Vancouver Island in British Columbia to Cape Mendocino in California.
18:59The pressure from the moving plates builds up over time, and eventually, another big, devastating earthquake will hit the same
19:06region.
19:07It's just a matter of time.
19:10By looking at the geological records, past tsunami deposits, and signs of land-level changes, scientists can figure out how
19:18often these huge earthquakes happen.
19:21Emergency planners have been preparing for the next big quake, often calling it the big one.
19:27Scientists believe earthquakes in the Cascadia Subduction Zone happen every 200 to 1,000 years.
19:33And since the last major one was over 300 years ago, the Pacific Northwest is definitely due for another.
19:42When it happens, the earthquake is expected to be as big as the one from 1700.
19:47But this time, it'll affect around 15 million people.
19:51The devastation will be severe.
19:53Buildings will collapse.
19:55Roads and runways will crack.
19:57And bridges will fall.
19:59Communication in and out of the area will be cut off.
20:02But the worst part?
20:04The earthquake will trigger a massive tsunami that might hit parts of the Washington coast in as little as 10
20:11minutes.
20:12It's not a matter of if, but when the Cascadia Subduction Zone will break.
20:16When it happens, it will be the worst disaster the U.S. has ever faced.
20:21Worse than the Hurricane Katrina or Superstorm Sandy.
20:25It'll impact an enormous area stretching from southern British Columbia all the way down through Oregon to northern California.
20:33That means millions and millions of people will be affected.
20:38Fairchild is considered a backup staging area for handling the aftermath of the earthquake, with Grant County International Airport in
20:46Moses Lake being the main one.
20:48For those who will survive the initial quake and tsunami, the aftermath could be just as disastrous.
20:55Aftershocks will follow and transportation will be a mess.
20:59Roads will be damaged or completely blocked.
21:02Airports will shut down.
21:03And most of the main routes, like Interstate 5, will have bridges destroyed.
21:08This means food and water supplies will be cut off, and it will be incredibly difficult for help to get
21:14in or for people to escape.
21:17Gas pipelines will most likely be damaged too, and restoring them could take anywhere from a few days inland to
21:24weeks or even months along the coast.
21:26Power outages will be widespread within 100 miles of the coast throughout the entire Pacific Northwest.
21:32And water could be out for three to seven months.
21:36Even telecommunications will be down for two to three months across the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and even parts of East
21:43Asia.
21:45The good news for eastern Washington is that it will mostly avoid the worst of it, thanks to natural barriers
21:51between the west and east sides of the state.
21:54The tsunami may hit the Columbia River Gorge, but it will lose energy quickly because of a sandbar under the
22:00river.
22:01The Cascade Mountains will absorb much of the earthquake's impact, so the east side won't feel it as strongly.
22:08And since eastern Washington won't get hit as hard, it'll be up to them to handle the aftermath of the
22:13quake.
22:14That means helping western Washington, taking in refugees from the areas that got destroyed, and delivering supplies to where they're
22:21needed.
22:23Scientists have looked at other major 8.0 to 9.0 magnitude earthquakes like the ones in Chile in 1960,
22:31Alaska in 1964, and Sumatra in 2004, and Japan in 2011.
22:39These kinds of quakes can shake the ground for anywhere between 6 to 10 minutes, and that's a long time
22:45for the ground to be shaking.
22:47Such quakes are super intense because they happen close to Earth's surface, so it's not just a quick shake.
22:53It's a long, strong one that can cause a lot of damage.
22:58If the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami were to hit tomorrow, over 13,800 people could lose their lives, and about
23:06107,000 people could be injured.
23:09The economic toll in Washington, Oregon, and California could top 70 billion.
23:15To put that into perspective, we can compare these numbers with some other major earthquakes.
23:20In Chile's 1960 earthquake, about 1,650 people lost their lives.
23:26The 1964 Alaska quake resulted in around 140 lives lost.
23:32The 2004 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami took the lives of an estimated 280,000 people.
23:40And the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami caused over 20,000 casualties.
23:48Authorities know about the dangers of the Cascadia Fault, but even with all the planning, no one can say for
23:54sure what will be needed when the big quake hits.
23:57Right after the earthquake and tsunami, the areas outside the immediate disaster zone won't be able to help much because
24:05roads and airports will be destroyed, and resources will be limited.
24:11How can we deal with this kind of disaster and its effects?
24:14We don't have all the answers yet.
24:17Right now, let's focus on the Cascadia subduction zone.
24:21It's a huge fault line that stretches about 620 miles from Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino in California, sitting about
24:2993 miles off the coast.
24:32It's like one tectonic plate is slowly sliding under another.
24:36When the plates are close to the surface, about 18 miles deep or less, they get stuck because of friction,
24:42kind of like pushing two rocks together.
24:45Over time, this creates a lot of pressure.
24:48When the pressure finally becomes too much, the plates slip, causing a massive earthquake.
24:54This is called a megathrust earthquake, and it can be huge.
24:59Below the area where the plates are stuck, there's a zone where the plates move really slowly.
25:05We're talking about just a few inches every few months.
25:09This slow movement helps to release some of the pressure, but it also builds up more pressure on the parts
25:15of the fault that are still stuck.
25:17This means that over time, it increases the chances of a huge earthquake happening.
25:21These massive quakes, called great subduction zone earthquakes, can be stronger than magnitude 8.5.
25:30Megathrust earthquakes are the biggest earthquakes that happen.
25:33They can go over a magnitude of 9.0, which is insanely powerful.
25:38Just to put it in perspective, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake releases 1,000 times more energy than a 7
25:45.0 and a million times more energy than a 5.0.
25:49These earthquakes happen when a lot of pressure builds up in a part of the fault that's locked, which means
25:56the plate can't move past each other.
25:58When that pressure gets too high, the fault finally ruptures, releasing all that built-up energy in one massive shake.
26:07The Cascadia subduction zone is super long.
26:10That's why if it were to rupture all at once, it could produce a large earthquake.
26:15Scientists have studied this region and found that about 18 miles below the surface, the fault is completely locked.
26:22The plates there aren't sliding past each other.
26:26But deeper down, the plates start to slide more smoothly, causing less friction.
26:31This is important because it tells us how much stress is building up in that locked zone and how it
26:37could eventually lead to a major earthquake.
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