What is the Yakutat Gap?

On 27 March 1964, the stresses of three tectonic plates beneath the North Pacific Ocean were too much. The area called the Yakutat Gap or Yakutat Plate suddenly released the pent-up energy and released a magnitude 9.2 earthquake.

The Yakutat Gap is truly a micro-gap in the thin crust of the Earth. The location where the three plates merge is at times thinly covered as the plates race towards whatever destination they have for a given era. The Pacific Plate is generally traveling NNW, while the adjacent North American Plate is moving generally westward. the different speeds of the plates allow for a pulling apart of the plates and the Yakutat Plate fills in the area not filled by the other two.

The Yakutat Gap itself is mostly under the ocean, with only a small portion of land in the area of the Wrangell/ St. Elias National Park in the US, and the adjacent Kluane National Park in Canada.

Although the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake relieved some of the stress, those stresses continue to build and will again release energy. Hopefully this will occur in a series of small events instead of a single large one as happened on 27 March 1964.