Yesterday, a strong magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Vanuatu, but this occurred in an unusual location. It did not originate on or near the subduction zone, but rather in an area that may one day become a new tectonic plate boundary. Today's video attempts to explain this October 8th 2026 earthquake, which occurred in the Vanuatu Back Arc Thrust Belt. Thumbnail Photo Credit: Google Earth, Image Landsat / Copernicus, Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO. This image was overlaid with text, and then overlaid with GeologyHub made graphics (the image border & the GeologyHub logo). A special thanks to the EarthquakeSim YouTube channel for granting me permission to use clips of his footage! Video Sources from the EarthquakeSim YouTube channel: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy_4G7ig5Gw Subscribe to EarthquakeSim at: https://www.youtube.com/@EarthquakeSim A special thanks to the Extreme Pursuit YouTube channel for granting me permission to use clips of his footage! Video Sources from the Extreme Pursuit YouTube channel: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzGJ8EmxSAI Extreme Pursuit channel link: https://www.youtube.com/ExtremePursuit If you would like to support this channel, consider using one of the following links: (Patreon: http://patreon.com/geologyhub) (YouTube membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYeGh5VML5XPr5jYnzh3J6g/join) (Gemstone & Mineral Etsy store: http://prospectingarizona.etsy.com) (GeologyHub Merch Etsy store: http://geologyhub.etsy.com) Google Earth imagery used in this video: ©Google & Data Providers This video is protected under "fair use". If you see an image and/or video which is your own in this video, and/or think my discussion of a scientific paper (and/or discussion/mentioning of the data/information within a scientific paper) does not fall under the fair use doctrine, and wish for it to be censored or removed, contact me by email at [email protected] and I will make the necessary changes. Various licenses used in sections of this video (not the entire video, this video as a whole does not completely fall under one of these licenses) and/or in this video's thumbnail image (and this list does not include every license used in this video and/or thumbnail image): Public Domain: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode Sources/Citations: [1] U.S. Geological Survey [2] Supendi, Pepen & Widiyantoro, Sri & Abdullah, C. & Rawlinson, N. & Cummins, Phil & Harris, C. & Roosmawati, Nova & Miller, Meghan. (2020). Fate of Forearc Lithosphere at Arc‐Continent Collision Zones: Evidence From Local Earthquake Tomography of the Sunda‐Banda Arc Transition, Indonesia. Geophysical Research Letters. 47. e2019GL086472. 10.1029/2019GL086472. CC BY 4.0. 0:00 Vanuatu Earthquake 0:30 Compression 1:28 A Similar Location 2:29 Volcanoes