202 km SE of Perryville, Alaska

This was a small earthquake. Shaking like this is often felt indoors nearby and very rarely causes damage.

At this magnitude and depth, people at rest would likely notice it out to about 78 km (48 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 7.6 tons of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 4.8 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 22,000× the energy of this one
2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 1,000× the energy of this one
3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 710× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 3.8 about 7.6 tons of TNT
5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 16× more

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 4.8 on 2021-07-29 — about 32 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record lists 7 earthquakes of M5 or more within 50 km; the five largest:

1. 6.2 189 km SE of Chignik, Alaska · 37 km NNE of this epicentre Mar 18, 1945
2. 5.9 182 km SE of Perryville, Alaska · 32 km W of this epicentre Dec 23, 1938
3. 5.6 205 km SE of Chignik, Alaska · 46 km NE of this epicentre Feb 7, 1996
4. 5.5 160 km SE of Perryville, Alaska · 42 km NW of this epicentre Mar 10, 2012
5. 5.0 176 km SSE of Chignik, Alaska · 33 km N of this epicentre Jul 21, 1982

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 54.6624, -156.8286. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Aftershocks so far

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

1. 2.8 171 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 02:53 UTC
2. 2.9 221 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 07:27 UTC
3. 3.4 212 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 23:39 UTC
4. 3.8 213 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 19:17 UTC
5. 3.0 203 km SE of Chignik, Alaska 14:58 UTC
6. 3.3 189 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 00:17 UTC
7. 2.5 208 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 03:14 UTC
8. 3.3 205 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 11:31 UTC
9. 3.0 204 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 05:13 UTC
10. 3.0 204 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 01:32 UTC
11. 3.1 194 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 14:00 UTC
12. 5.1 200 km SE of Chignik, Alaska 23:05 UTC
13. 3.2 191 km SE of Chignik, Alaska 18:35 UTC
14. 3.9 197 km SE of Chignik, Alaska 10:48 UTC
15. 2.8 162 km SE of Perryville, Alaska 05:17 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 14:25 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.