Less than a month after the violent earthquake of magnitude 8.8 in Kamchatkathe peninsula at the eastern end of Russia was hit today by another violent earthquake of magnitude 6.0 (UGSG data) at hours 15:49 (Local time, in Italy 3:49) with a little epicenter off the coast. The shock recorded a hypocenter about 53.4 km of depth and, at the moment, No special damage have been reported to things or people. Tsunami alerts are not currently issued.
In reality, the values of magnitude and depth vary slightly depending on the body that provided the data: the INGV, for example, reports a magnitude of 6.1 for a depth of 30 km. This difference will be smooth out in the next few hours when more precise and detailed analyzes of the data available will be carried out. In any case, it is a seismic event that does not come entirely unexpected, given that less than a month ago – to be precise the July 30th – The same area was hit by a violent earthquake of magnitude 8.8, one of the strongest ever recorded in history.
But from the geological point of view what are the causes of this shock?
The first thing to keep in mind is that the subduction from the peaceful plaque below the okhorsk microplacca, in turn part of the North American plate. This scrolling can create complex fault systems which, over time, accumulate large quantities of energy: when this is freed, even very high earthquakes can be generated. In today’s case, the non -excessively high magnitude and a relatively high depth have allowed most of the energy to disperse before reaching the surface, limiting the amount of damage.
