Alaska’s seismic landscape has once again reminded residents and scientists alike of the region’s volatile geological nature, as nearly 500 earthquakes shook the state in the week leading up to November 27, 2025. According to the Alaska Earthquake Center, this flurry of seismic activity included a magnitude 6.0 quake that rattled the Anchorage area on Thanksgiving, sending tremors through the city but, fortunately, causing no major damage or injuries.
“Alaska typically experiences a high level of seismic activity, and while almost 500 earthquakes in a week may sound like a lot, it isn’t unusual for the state,” Ezgi Karasözen, a research seismologist with the Alaska Earthquake Center, explained to Newsweek. She added that, in fact, “overall we’ve actually been seeing lower seismicity this year compared to many previous years, so last week’s numbers aren’t particularly notable in the broader context.”
The magnitude 6.0 quake struck about nine miles west of Susitna and approximately thirty miles from Anchorage, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. While the event resulted in widespread shaking felt by residents, authorities reported no immediate significant injuries or structural damage. Still, the incident prompted officials to keep a close eye on aftershocks and potential impacts, especially given Anchorage’s relatively dense population compared to other parts of the state.
The Alaska Earthquake Center’s data, shared on social media the day before Thanksgiving, placed the week’s largest recorded quake prior to the Susitna event at magnitude 5.8, occurring west of Adak on November 22. Of the nearly 500 tremors, five were reportedly felt by people in the region—a testament to both the frequency and the often undetectable nature of many Alaska earthquakes.
But these seismic events are more than just numbers on a chart. They serve as a stark reminder of Alaska’s unique position atop the Pacific Rim, one of the most seismically active areas on Earth. The region sits at the collision point of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, where, as the Alaska Earthquake Center described in a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), “huge amounts of strain build over days, years, and decades. The strain ultimately exceeds the point at which the crust’s rocks can contain it, causing rupture and releasing pent-up energy as a major earthquake. In coastal Alaska, such large earthquakes can also cause tsunamis.”
Indeed, the threat of tsunamis looms large over Alaska and its neighbors, including the Oregon coast. The memory of the 2011 Great Tohoku earthquake in Japan, which triggered a tsunami that killed nearly 20,000 people and sent waves crashing as far as Oregon, remains fresh in the minds of many. Fortunately, recent earthquakes in Alaska, though powerful, have not resulted in such catastrophic outcomes. Still, the region’s history offers sobering anniversaries: November 30, 2025, marks the date of both a magnitude 7.9 Gulf of Alaska earthquake in 1987 and a magnitude 7.1 Anchorage earthquake in 2018—two events that underscore the ever-present danger.
Preparedness is the watchword for those living in Alaska’s shadow of seismic uncertainty. “Alaska has experienced 60 earthquakes above magnitude 7 in the past century, and 56 of those were along our southern margin,” the Alaska Earthquake Center noted in its post. “Thankfully, the majority are away from large population centers. While we still can’t predict earthquakes, their inevitability in Alaska helps us better prepare, both mentally and logistically.”
But readiness depends on more than public awareness—it also relies on the infrastructure that detects and alerts communities to imminent threats. That’s why, on November 19, 2025, Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington urged federal officials to reinstate a $300,000 annual grant to the Alaska Earthquake Center in Fairbanks. This funding, she argued, is critical for maintaining the network of 250 seismic stations across Alaska that provide real-time data essential for tsunami warnings, including those that safeguard the Oregon coast.
The grant had supported the maintenance of nine particularly remote and vital seismic stations, as well as the instant relay of data to federal warning centers. However, with the grant cut in the federal budget for fiscal year 2024, the Alaska Earthquake Center initially planned to halt its data supply to the Tsunami Warning Centers—a move that, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive, would have reduced the accuracy and timeliness of tsunami alerts for the Pacific Northwest.
Senator Cantwell captured the urgency in her letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): “Seconds matter during a tsunami, and coastal communities can have as little as 20 minutes to evacuate and prepare for an incoming wave. Any delay in the data could erode critical time to get people out of harm’s way.”
In response to the funding shortfall, the Alaska Earthquake Center made the decision to continue paying for the relay of seismic data to federal centers out of its own budget. However, as spokesperson Elisabeth Nadin explained, the center will not be able to fund the maintenance of those nine remote stations. These outposts, located in some of the most seismically active and inaccessible parts of the state, are “extremely expensive” to reach and maintain. As a result, they will continue transmitting data only until they fail due to natural events or equipment malfunctions.
University of Washington seismologist Harold Tobin stressed the importance of these stations, telling The Oregonian/OregonLive, “It’s certainly one of the most remote areas that exist. But it also is a place where there’s a lot of earthquakes and a lot of underwater earthquakes. It is a region that it’s absurd to not be monitoring closely from the perspective of tsunami warnings.”
NOAA, for its part, emphasized that it does not rely on any single source of information for tsunami alerts, describing the Alaska Earthquake Center as “one of many partners” in its network of data providers. Still, the potential loss of coverage from these nine key stations has raised concerns among scientists and emergency planners about future warning capabilities, especially for communities with little time to react.
For now, the Alaska Earthquake Center’s decision to backfill federal cuts ensures that tsunami warnings for the Oregon coast and beyond remain unaffected—at least temporarily. But with the region’s seismic restlessness unlikely to abate, the episode highlights the delicate balance between budget realities and the urgent need for reliable, timely warning systems in one of the world’s most earthquake-prone regions.
As Alaska’s tectonic plates continue their relentless collision, and as communities from Anchorage to the Oregon coast look to the future, the message rings clear: vigilance, investment, and preparedness are the best defenses against the unpredictable power beneath our feet.
