Alaska Science Forum: The closest people to an 8.2 earthquake [View all]

A cabin on Chowiet Island off the Alaska Peninsula in which two biologists were the closest humans to a recent magnitude 8.2 earthquake. (Courtesy Photo /Erik Andersen, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.)


What if the country’s largest earthquake in the last half century happened as you were getting ready for bed in the only cabin on a tiny island in the North Pacific. What if the epicenter was just 50 miles away?

A magnitude 8.2 earthquake happened at 10:15 p.m. Alaska time on July 28, 2021. The people who were closest to the rupture of the Aleutian megathrust zone were two biologists who are living on Chowiet Island this summer.

Chowiet Island, a tiny speck in the North Pacific, is part of the vast Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, which includes the entire sweep of the Aleutian Islands.

The crew of the Refuge ship the Tiglax dropped Katie Stoner and Briana Bode off on Chowiet Island in early May. Their duties on the green island are to climb its rocky cliffs and continue studies on murres, auklets and puffins and other seabirds that biologists have carried out for years.

Read more: https://www.juneauempire.com/news/alaska-science-forum-the-closest-people-to-an-8-2-earthquake/


This photo sent via satellite phone shows the interior of a cabin on Chowiet Island a few hours after a nearby magnitude 8.2 earthquake. (Courtesy Photo / Katie Stoner, Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.


Biologists Briana Bode, left, and Katie Stoner as they were dropped off at their cabin on Chowiet Island in May 2021. The women recently experienced a magnitude 8.2 earthquake there, not far from the epicenter.(Courtesy Photo / Heather Renner, Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge)