A magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Russia's far east coast Tuesday night, prompting tsunami waves along the U.S. West Coast. Simon Boxall, oceanography professor at the University of Southampton in the U.K., joins CBS News to unpack the phenomenon.

Moscow

A magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Russia's Far East, generating a tsunami that affected several areas along the Pacific Rim. The event occurred in the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region known for frequent seismic activity due to the movement of tectonic plates.

Oceanographer Simon Boxall explained that the earthquake was caused by the Pacific plate sliding under the Okhotsk plate, a process that can trigger significant tsunamis. The resulting wave reached four metres on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, causing damage, but was less severe as it traveled across the Pacific, with wave heights decreasing to under two metres in Japan and further reducing before reaching Hawaii and the US west coast.

Oceanographer breaks down Russia earthquake, resulting tsunami waves

Back to one of our top stories, that magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck Russia's Far East Coast overnight. A quake that strong produces power equivalent to one trillion kilograms of TNT. It struck in an area known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region surrounding the Pacific Ocean that's especially susceptible to earthquakes as well as volcanic eruptions. Simon Boxall joins us now for more. He's a professor at the University of Southampton in the UK and has a PhD in oceanography. Simon, thank you for being us, being here with us. Tell me about this Pacific Ring of Fire. Why is this area so prone to massive earthquakes? Basically the planet's made up of tectonic plates and where we get these ocean plates pushing against the continental plates, the ocean plates slide under the continental plates and this movement has been going on since the Earth was formed. It's an important process. Without the tectonic plates, we'd live on a very different world today. But every so often as these plates slide together, that rubbing causes earthquakes and that's what the earthquake is basically in this case. Now where are the plates sliding underneath? We have the Pacific plate in the open ocean going under what's a very small plate. It's called the Okhotsk plate, it's an odd name to pronounce. It's a very small plate which sits in the sort of area between China and that peninsula in Japan. And that's a really active area. In fact, we've seen a couple of big earthquakes in that specific area in the last 70 years. And as the tectonic plate goes underneath the continental plate, eventually friction takes over and the whole thing flips up and that creates a tsunami. And we get these earthquakes all around the Pacific Rim. There are several every day, it's just very rare they become this big. So can you explain to those of us who say, myself, I live in Los Angeles, we're always waiting for the big one, but why do certain areas get those tsunami warnings? The tsunamis can occur any time we get an earthquake. It's not all earthquakes create tsunamis. It depends very much on the way in which the plate flips. And in this case, I think we were relatively lucky, it did cause a tsunami. It wasn't on a par with the tsunami in Japan in 2011, which was huge, nor the one in Indonesia in 2004. So this one created quite a devastating wave actually on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. It caused a four metre wave, which has caused damage. We don't know yet whether there are any casualties. But by the time it reached Japan, the wave is moving across the ocean at about 500 miles an hour, the speed of a jet. As it approaches Japan, it was about two metres, just under two metres high. And then it moved across the Pacific towards Hawaii, and then eventually hit the west coast of the US. And by that stage, different reports coming in, it was between one and a half metres in Hawaii, down to probably two or three feet by the time it reached the west coast of America. So although it was significant, it wasn't devastating in the same way a ten metre tsunami might be, 30, 32 foot. Simon Boxall, thank you so much for your insight today. We appreciate it. Thank you.

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