Green Group discussion

A magnitude 8.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Russia on July 28, and a magnitude 7.3 off the coast of Alaska on July 16. No major damage to human structures because the regions are sparsely populated. Tsunami warnings were issued for both. No damage from the first, still waiting to see what comes from the second.

Starting a week before and continuing during the same time, Mount Rainier has had hundreds of small Earthquakes. The USCS reports that earthquake activity has slowed down from the 41 events per hour on July 8 to a few events per hour by July 25.

Mount Rainier usually sees about nine earthquakes per month. The last earthquake swarm was in 2009 and lasted only three days. The ongoing swarm has far surpassed that in frequency, event rate, and energy release.

According to scientists the Mount Rainer earthquake swarm has nothing to do with volcanic activity. The earthquake activity is happening along the northern boundaries of the Pacific Rim of Fire.

https://creators.yahoo.com/lifestyle/...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/t...

https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/cv...

While it's obviously worrying for anyone in the area, these don't seem to have caused much harm.
I read that a seamount volcano off Alaska is expected to erupt this year.
Possibly the effect will be more a disturbance of seabed sediment and mixing of different levels of temperature and salinity in the water.

That region is coming awake. Volcanic ash has a cooling effect on the atmosphere, it also contains fertilising minerals.

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2025...

"A volcano has erupted for the first time in 450 years in Russia's eastern Kamchatka region, the nation's emergency authority has said, days after one of the strongest earthquakes on record hit the region.

Pictures released by Russian state media show a towering plume of ash spewing from the Krasheninnikov volcano, which last erupted in 1550, according to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program."

There was another earthquake in Chile that collapsed part of the world's largest underground copper mine. It is not known if it was a natural quake or it was caused by improper mining techniques, or both. Some infrastructure damage but not widespread, isolated incidents.

2 Earthquakes, 6.1 and 6.3 off the cost of New Zealand July 7. Neither caused much damage. Small residential areas already living in earthquake resistant structures.

All of this is on the Pacific rim of fire. Whatever was happening under Mt Rainer causing lots of earthquake swarms has subsided. Have to wait and see if this indicates a lessening of plate tensions over the pacific rim.

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/04/nx-s1-...

https://watchers.news/2025/07/07/m6-3...

Authors are nothing if not helpful. I have copied this report from the newsletter of Kate Condie who happened to be on roadtrip vacation with her family members.
Anyone who would like to keep up with Kate's news would no doubt be welcome to subscribe to her e-mail newsletter.


"We were gone from home for a full two weeks. We spent a few days in my husband's hometown among family and walnut trees (dreamy) then we took that family along with us to the Redwoods a few hours away.
First we camped on the actual Avenue of the Giants. Magical.

It's Tuesday, we've arrived at our second campsite near Crescent City, CA. Right on the coast. I mean, we can see the ocean during most of the drive. We stayed at a campground called Mill Creek and we ADORE it.

It's full of huge stumps of redwoods that were milled back in the 1800s when that was legal. If it doesn't make you cry to think about such a prehistoric thing being chopped down, you'll find it's an excellent playground for the kids. Also, there's no cell reception in this campground which I always love. There's something so liberating about being unreachable.

So we're there, our campsites are set up, but we need a few random things from the store. Another can of tomato soup for chili mac, some socks because I somehow packed plenty for my children and not enough for myself, a toothbrush for one child whose disappeared, you get the picture.

We give lists to our husbands and take off in my van (which we've officially dubbed "The Rig" because when it has 4 bikes, and a giant car topper you can't help but be proud of that thing for driving us all over the place). My sister-in-law, Heather and I have the kids around the campfire, we're eating rice crispy treats, we're singing along with the guitar, we're reading spooky stories. Life is great.

Heather steps away to help her kid with a potty break and while she's away my phone (which has no reception) gets one of those jarring alerts, like you'd get if there was a kidnapping in your area. I pull it out, expecting an Amber Alert or some sort, surprised that these still come through when I can't get anything else.

On my screen is an warning, but it's not an amber alert. It's an emergency warning. Here's what saw on my screen.

*** ! Emergency Alert
The National Weather Service has issued a TSUNAMI WARNING.
A series of powerful waves and strong currents may impact coasts near you. You are in danger. Get away from coastal waters. Move to high ground or inland now. Keep away from the coast until local officials say it is safe to return. ***

Now, I don't know about you, but I get Amber Alerts from situations that happened states away. I usually read them with the knowledge that it won't affect me. So there I was, sitting at a campfire with lots of children, my husband had my car and was unreachable.

I wondered, "Do I need to be worried?"

The whole "you are in danger" portion of the message was a little freaky. Also the small detail that we were within a mile of the coastline.

So Heather returns and I show her the message. I say, "Did Blair leave you keys for your truck?" I figure if we needed to evacuate, we could all pile into their vehicle. Except she's not sure the keys aren't in his pocket.

It's fine. I think, in my usual mantra.

Our husbands have cell reception and they can see what's really going on. If it's serious, they'll drive right back and we'll do whatever we need to.

The night wears on and dark settles. We decide emergency warning or not, we should probably get these kiddos to bed. So we carry on as usual.

But as I settle into my own sleeping bag, I can't help but feel uneasy, only not because of the possible tsunami, mostly because it's dark and all that's between me and a potential attacker is a sheet of nylon.

They arrived shortly after, with their own story about how sirens wailed while they were in the store.

But they decided our location was high enough elevation as to not be at risk.

The next morning we drove out of the campsite and checked the news. It turns out that Crescent City, CA had the highest waves of the ENTIRE USA coast (except Hawaii). But they were only 4 feet high. So I'm glad we didn't fret too much.

We ran into some other folks who were evacuated from their hotel room and had to sit on a cliff on high ground until the threat subsided at 1:30am.

That would have been about the worst thing, excepting getting actually hit by a tsunami, of course. Though it would have made for a pretty memorable story."

While the earthquakes during July were accompanied by several volcanic eruptions, both in the area, northern rim of Pacific Ring of Fire, other areas around the Earth also had eruptions. This included Italy, Iceland, Indonesia, Costa Rica, and Hawaii. The number of eruptions was not not unusual.

One set of eruptions was either highly coincidental or could be related to the recent seismic activity. 7 volcanoes are now erupting which weren't erupting last week, in the sparsely populated eastern Russia region.

What is different is that the amount of noxious emissions, especially sulfur dioxide, from these volcanic eruptions is greater than normal. Sulfur dioxide is not a greenhouse gas but it does create acid rain which is not good for anything.