Earthquake Swarms in Northern Alaska - What Could Be the Cause?
(Courtesy of Alaska Earthquake Center - Google Maps, used for illustrative purposes only)
Being back in Big Island, our Kilauea volcano has calmed down, but for 2 months between June and July 2018 ... Halemaumau, the main volcano caldera of Kilauea would have earthquake swarms for weeks on end ... with big 5.5 magnitude, indicating caldera collapses at predictable intervals. And then there were plenty of 1.0 to 3.0 earthquakes to go in between.
Now I noticed that up in northern Alaska ... a 6.4 magnitude triggered new earthquake swarms up there. I use Quakefeed, so my app always keeps mentioning these small earthquake swarms near the most northern town of Kaktovik, Alaska.
The earthquake 101 they teach in geology class was always so basic, with the fault lines, etc. So rudimentary, that for these kind of real life situations, doesn't explain why there are so many earthquakes in the middle of nowhere up in northern Alaska.
I know Alaska has some dormant volcanoes ... is there one in that area? Or is it other reasons.
Does anyone know here or can provide theories as to the cause of earthquake swarms in this region?
Good question! My guess would be... tectonics! In this case the Pacific plate smashing up against the North American plate...
Yea i traditionally would have thought that ... except these swarm of quakes are not near a tectonic plate border ...
PS. a bit more on it here:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ak20076877#executive
It was shallow, and more or less strike-slip. So yeah, a shallow fault line ruptured generating an earthquake... pretty cool!
Hmm ... I guess according to USGS ... still doesn't explain why there are swarm of hundreds of small 1.0-3.0 earthquakes in that same area with total of 7 days of all those swarms. But you know ... who knows LOL?