86 km ESE of McCarthy, 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 9 km (6 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 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 2.6 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 2,000,000× the energy of this one
2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 1,400,000× the energy of this one
3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 130× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 1.6 about 7.6 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 4.1 on 2021-08-20 — about 5,600 times the energy of this one.

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

1. 6.1 109 km E of McCarthy, Alaska · 24 km E of this epicentre Jul 7, 1920
2. 5.5 87 km ENE of McCarthy, Alaska · 40 km N of this epicentre Nov 23, 1987

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 61.2610, -141.3530. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Aftershocks so far

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

1. 1.4 57 km ESE of McCarthy, Alaska 07:53 UTC
2. 1.3 55 km E of McCarthy, Alaska 01:06 UTC
3. 1.4 58 km E of McCarthy, Alaska 08:34 UTC
4. 1.6 54 km E of McCarthy, Alaska 08:20 UTC
5. 2.1 108 km ESE of McCarthy, Alaska 06:32 UTC
6. 1.4 64 km ESE of McCarthy, Alaska 03:05 UTC
7. 1.9 69 km E of McCarthy, Alaska 05:43 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 10:13 UTC. QuakeIndex does not forecast aftershocks. When USGS issues an operational aftershock forecast it appears on the USGS event page.

Revisions

USGS refines a solution as more stations report. Every change we have seen is listed here.

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.