Formed from the highly oblique movement of the Pacific plate, the direction of convergence is nearly parallel to the trench at 7.8 mm/yr.

[5] No loss of life or property damage was reported following the earthquake due to the remoteness of the event, although it could be felt by people.

Its rupture length of 400 km is also one of the longest in the world for a strike-slip fault, comparable to the 1906 San Francisco and 2001 Kokoxili earthquake.

[12][6] Nearly all of the aftershocks from this earthquake were relatively small, mostly in the M4.0s range, which meant that the initial quake had released most of the strain that had been building-up.

[13] On December 12, a 7.3 struck near the Kamchatka Peninsula with strike-slip mechanism was not part of the aftershock sequence, but was likely triggered by stress transfer from the July 17 quake.