New Method Pinpointed Where a Massive Kamchatka Earthquake Would Strike

UC Riverside geophysicists Gareth Funning and Axel Periollat have developed a method to identify where Earth's biggest earthquakes are most likely to occur — not when they will strike, but where stress has been building along a fault. Their approach focuses on subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides beneath another, generating the planet's largest earthquakes, some exceeding magnitude 8.5, and often triggering tsunamis. Using GPS measurements of subtle ground movement, the team built an algorithm that identifies “asperities” — locked patches of a fault that resist motion, storing energy until enough stress builds to trigger a major rupture.

In a test detailed in a Geophysical Research Letters paper, the researchers found their model had highlighted the exact section of the Kamchatka subduction zone in eastern Russia where a magnitude 8.8 earthquake later struck. “Earthquakes capture headlines when they happen, but for years beforehand the fault is quietly accumulating strain. This strain can be measured,” Funning said. Periollat added: “We had an idea where the strain was accumulating based on a relatively limited data set. Seeing it work so well confirmed that this approach has real potential.”

The method cannot predict an earthquake's timing or the size of any tsunami it triggers. The team also found that Kamchatka's 2025 quake generated a much smaller tsunami than an earlier magnitude 9.0 quake in 1952, suggesting the shallowest part of the fault slipped less this time. Funning and Periollat are now applying the same approach to subduction zones in Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and the U.S. Pacific Northwest, as well as investigating whether it can identify the most hazardous sections of California's Hayward Fault, which — like a subduction zone — has both creeping and locked sections.

Applying the method more broadly will require better data, since GPS stations on land are far more numerous than measurements offshore, where many of the world's most dangerous faults lie. Researchers in Japan have begun using seafloor acoustic instruments to measure slow deformation over many years, and similar efforts are being proposed for Chile and the Pacific Northwest.