south of Alaska

This was a minor earthquake. Quakes this small are rarely felt and do not cause damage.

At this magnitude and depth, people at rest would likely notice it out to about 5 km (3 mi) from the epicentre. Estimated from magnitude, depth and distance with the intensity equation USGS Did You Feel It? uses; felt reports, where there are any, are the measurement.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 60 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 3.2 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 250,000× the energy of this one
2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 180,000× the energy of this one
3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 16× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 2.2 about 60 lb of TNT

Energy from the Gutenberg–Richter relation (log₁₀E = 1.5M + 4.8), rounded to two figures; bar length is magnitude, which is already a logarithm of energy. Magnitudes of past earthquakes from the USGS catalogue.

For this area

The largest earthquake within 50 km since 2016 was M 7.6 on 2020-10-19 — about 130,000,000 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record lists 2 earthquakes of M5 or more within 50 km:

1. 5.9 99 km SE of Sand Point, Alaska · 46 km NE of this epicentre Oct 20, 1929
2. 5.9 131 km S of Sand Point, Alaska · 33 km WSW of this epicentre Dec 3, 1933

Since 2016: the QuakeIndex catalogue (US, M1.5+), built from the USGS FDSN event service. Before 2016: USGS ComCat, M5+ from 1900. Distances are between epicentres. This is the record, not a forecast.

Where

Epicentre 54.3027, -159.9520. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Aftershocks so far

60 earthquakes have been recorded within 50 km since this one.

1. 2.6 94 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 02:59 UTC
2. 2.4 102 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 01:37 UTC
3. 2.6 84 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 01:02 UTC
4. 2.6 114 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 23:18 UTC
5. 3.0 94 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 23:10 UTC
6. 2.7 96 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 22:34 UTC
7. 2.4 93 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 22:24 UTC
8. 2.4 108 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 21:26 UTC
9. 2.6 90 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 20:57 UTC
10. 2.5 111 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 16:32 UTC
11. 2.2 95 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 15:43 UTC
12. 2.1 99 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 15:43 UTC
13. 2.6 135 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 14:06 UTC
14. 2.1 101 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 13:42 UTC
15. 2.4 101 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska 10:45 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 00:10 UTC. QuakeIndex does not forecast aftershocks. When USGS issues an operational aftershock forecast it appears on the USGS event page.

On USGS

• The official USGS event page — the source of record for every value above
• Did you feel it? Report it to USGS — reports go to USGS, not to us
• ShakeMap for this event, when USGS has produced one

QuakeIndex does not issue warnings. For earthquake early warning see ShakeAlert.