Tonight, Akademik Vernadsky station recorded a powerful earthquake in the southern part of the Drake Passage. This is a stretch of ocean between South America and Antarctica.
The epicenter was at a depth of 14 km, and the magnitude was 7 (on the Richter scale). Such earthquakes are considered destructive. A tsunami threat has already been declared in Chile.
The seismic shock at Vernadsky was recorded on August 21 at 11:16 p.m., while in Ukraine it was 5:16 a.m. August 22.
Our polar explorers did not physically feel the earthquake, but it was detected by the station’s highly sensitive seismic-acoustic equipment.
The tidal wave from the shock was also recorded by tide gauges at Vernadsky.
The analog tide gauge tape shows that the first tsunami wave reached our island at 1 a.m. on August 22, local time. Its amplitude was only about 20 cm. The echo in the water area lasted for another 5 hours.
We remind you that the station conducts continuous observations of geophysical processes in the region, in particular, seismic activity.
Seismic-acoustic measurements have been ongoing since 2000, and a large-scale upgrade of the equipment for these studies took place in 2020. The data obtained is sent in real time to the National Data Center of the National Seismic Observation System of Ukraine.
Such data allow:
- to confirm and refine earthquake parameters determined by other seismological networks;
- to analyze the connections between tectonic activity in different regions, in particular in the context of global seismicity;
- to improve global seismic wave propagation models used in tsunami and natural disaster forecasts.
That is, the recording of earthquakes at Vernadsky is an important contribution of Ukrainians to the global monitoring of natural phenomena and the study of the Earth’s geodynamic processes.
We remind you that this year our station already recorded a major earthquake in the Drake Passage – it was on May 2.