QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 1.7ml

13km W of Isla Vista, CA

· 2.6 km deep · released about 9.3 lb of TNT

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10 km30 km60 km120 km N Santa Barbara County 14 kmVentura County 80 kmSan Luis Obispo County 116 km
Distance rings around the epicentre, with the nearest towns at their true direction and later quakes as coloured dots. Not a shaking map — see the USGS ShakeMap for that.
When
Magnitude
M 1.7 (ml)
Depth
2.6 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Nearest
Santa Barbara County, 14 km NNW
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 3387 days ago

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

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 9.3 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 2.7 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 1,600,000× the energy of this one
  2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 1,100,000× the energy of this one
  3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 100× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 1.7 about 9.3 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.

Where

Epicentre 34.4153, -119.9990. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Santa Barbara County, CA 14 km (9 mi) SSE of here earthquakes near Santa Barbara County
Ventura County, CA 80 km (50 mi) W of here earthquakes near Ventura County
San Luis Obispo County, CA 116 km (72 mi) SSE of here earthquakes near San Luis Obispo County
Kern County, CA 155 km (97 mi) SW of here earthquakes near Kern County

Places and coordinates from the US Census Bureau Gazetteer (2024). Distances are from the epicentre.

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 2.1 22km SSE of Santa Barbara, CA
  2. 1.8 9km W of Isla Vista, CA
  3. 1.7 4km SW of Carpinteria, CA
  4. 2.2 4km SW of Carpinteria, CA
  5. 2.5 8km S of Carpinteria, CA
  6. 1.8 10km SE of Santa Ynez, CA
  7. 1.7 8km ESE of Vandenberg Village, CA
  8. 1.7 4km S of Buellton, CA
  9. 1.6 14km SSE of Santa Barbara, CA
  10. 1.8 12km NNW of Santa Barbara, CA
  11. 2.0 13km W of Isla Vista, CA
  12. 1.9 14km SSE of Santa Barbara, CA
  13. 1.8 15km SSE of Santa Barbara, CA
  14. 1.7 14km SSE of Santa Barbara, CA
  15. 2.0 7km S of Montecito, CA

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

For this area

The largest earthquake within 50 km in our catalogue was M 4.1 on 2017-05-17 — it released about 4,000 times the energy of this one.

From the QuakeIndex catalogue, built from the USGS FDSN event service.

On USGS

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