Tsunamis can be created by the fast displacement of water when the sea floor lifts and/or falls due to crustal movements that accompany very large earthquakes. The shallow nature of the sea floor off the coast of Alaska could raise the destructive potential of a tsunami wave in the Pacific.

Earthquake behavior is difficult to forecast in this region which is a transition zone between two of the world's most active plate boundary faults; the Fair-weather fault, and the Aleutian subduction zone. In 1899 and 1979, large earthquakes occurred in the region but did not trigger a Tsunami because the rupturing was restricted beneath the land instead of the sea floor.

Prof Ron Bruhn from the University of Utah said: "If the larger earthquake that is suggested by our work hits the region, the size of the potential tsunami could be significantly larger than in 1964 since a multi-rupture quake would displace the shallow continental shelf of the Yakutat microplate."