A study offers new insights into the potential of large subduction earthquakes to generate tsunamis, helping to improve warning systems and hazard assessments.
The limited impact of the tsunami generated by the 2025 Kamchatka earthquake is linked to specific characteristics of the seismic rupture. This is what emerges from a new study. “Limited impact of the 2025 Kamchatka tsunami explained by the complex seismic rupture”, published in the magazine Communications Earth & Environment di Nature and conducted by the research team of theIstituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), from the CINECA in Italy, of theNational Observatory of Athens (NOA) in Greece and of theUniversity of Malaga in Spain.
The study was born from the need to explain The limited impact of the tsunami observed at a great distance from the fault of the magnitude 8.8 earthquake of July 29, 2025. In the vicinity of the source area, the 2025 tsunami recorded a run up Maximum wave heights of 18–19 meters along the coasts of the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kurile Islands, comparable to the 20 meters recorded for the 1952 tsunami generated by a magnitude 8.8–9.0 seismic event in the same area. However, examination of the maximum wave amplitudes recorded by more distant coastal tide gauges shows that the 1952 event had a greater overall impact in the far field.
Studying the seismic rupture characteristics of the 2025 earthquake, The researchers found that the plaque dislocation, which occurred mainly at relatively high depths within the Earth's crust and which generated less deformation of the seabed, it limited the initial potential energy of the displaced water mass and therefore the impact of the tsunami at a great distance from the source, resulting in a smaller magnitude than that of the 1952 tsunami. At the same time, shallower displacement sectors, which caused localized displacement of the seafloor, explain the similar impact between the 2025 and 1952 tsunamis near the source area.
Comparisons with other past events besides the 1952 tsunami, such as the 2010 Maule tsunami (magnitude 8.8 off the coast of Chile) and the 2005 Nias-Simeulue tsunami (magnitude 8.6-8.7 off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia), helped validate the study's findings.
“The unique combination of data provided by ground- and space-based geodesy, deep-sea tsunami monitoring and satellite data has provided the opportunity to unravel the intricate relationship between earthquake characteristics, local sea depth and tsunami impact both near and far from the source. explains Stefano Lorito, coordinator of the INGV Tsunami Warning Center and first author of the study - We learn something from every new event and these results represent another small step towards improving future tsunami hazard assessments and warnings.”.
The study highlights The challenges tsunami warning centers face in providing accurate forecasts, due to the uncertainties related to the tsunami generation mechanism and the limited time window available to send timely warnings to coastal populations at risk. The future of tsunami warnings therefore depends on managing these margins of error., through increased availability of real-time data from deep-sea sensors and satellites, as well as increasingly accurate quantification of uncertainties, to support decision makers called upon to make decisions based on acceptable levels of risk.
Link to the study
Link to the English version
Useful links:
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
Figure - Snapshot of the numerical simulation of tsunami propagation from the 2025 Kamchatka earthquake model (Lorito et al., Communications Earth & Environment, 2026; https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-04050-5); tsunami modeling performed with the JAGURS code (Baba et al., 2017; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocemod.2017.01.002).