Capturing mega-tsunamis with seismology

Dr. Stephen Hicks (University College London)

Climate change is increasingly predisposing polar and alpine regions to catastrophic landslides. In August 2025, another landslide, this time in Alaska’s Tracy Arm fjord, produced a 481-metre high megatsunami, preceded by days of accelerating micro-seismicity. The failure generated globally observed long-period seismic waves equivalent to a magnitude-5.4 earthquake, followed by ~66-second monochromatic signals lasting over 36 hours. These events demonstrate how climate-driven glacier retreat can trigger cascading hazards - linking slope failure, fjord seiches, and globally detectable seismic waves - and highlight the growing risks posed by landslide-induced tsunamis in increasingly visited fjord environments.

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