Earthquake and degraded permafrost triggered massive Arctic glacier rock avalanche

A rock avalanche buried the Kjerulf Glacier on Jan Mayen Island under nearly one million cubic meters of rock on 10 March 2025, according to Eos Earth & Space Science. The collapse occurred three minutes after a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck an oceanic transform fault in the Arctic Ocean, located seven kilometers away from the island. [1][2]

Eos reported that other Arctic islands have experienced similarly strong earthquakes without suffering rock avalanches. New research revealed that a series of earlier, smaller avalanches had progressively weakened the rock slope above the Kjerulf Glacier prior to the major seismic event. Scientists determined that permafrost degradation, driven by regional warming, likely enabled these preliminary slope failures. [1][2]

Permafrost thawing is a widespread consequence of climate change in the Arctic, where warming occurs at three to four times the global average rate. Earthquakes are known external triggers for avalanches, which can capture and move massive volumes of rock, ice, and debris along slope trajectories. As FTMQ Science reported earlier, accelerating Arctic warming continues to alter far northern polar ecosystems, including the total collapse of regional ice structures. [3][4][6]

The findings demonstrate how climate-induced permafrost degradation interacts with seismic activity to destabilize steep Arctic slopes. Researchers studied the site to understand why specific locations become vulnerable to sudden catastrophic failure during tectonic events. [1][2]