QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 1.6ml

20km S of Big Pine, CA

· 6.9 km deep · released about 8.7 lb of TNT

Felt it? Tell USGS Check my area
10 km30 km60 km120 km N Inyo County 89 kmTulare County 97 kmEsmeralda County 103 kmMono County 117 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 1.6 (ml)
Depth
6.9 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Nearest
Inyo County, 89 km ESE
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 3009 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 8.7 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 1,700,000× the energy of this one
  2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 1,200,000× the energy of this one
  3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 110× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 1.6 about 8.7 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 36.9887, -118.2503. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Inyo County, CA 89 km (55 mi) WNW of here earthquakes near Inyo County
Tulare County, CA 97 km (60 mi) NNE of here earthquakes near Tulare County
Esmeralda County, NV 103 km (64 mi) SSW of here earthquakes near Esmeralda County
Mono County, CA 117 km (73 mi) SSE of here earthquakes near Mono County

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

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 1.7 2 km NNW of West Bishop, California
  2. 1.8 36 km ESE of Big Pine, California
  3. 2.1 7 km SSW of Wilkerson, California
  4. 2.0 29 km E of Big Pine, CA
  5. 1.6 7 km SSW of Wilkerson, California
  6. 1.6 24 km E of Bishop, California
  7. 1.6 2 km E of Bishop, California
  8. 1.8 2 km E of Bishop, California
  9. 1.5 2 km E of Bishop, California
  10. 1.7 8 km ENE of Wilkerson, California
  11. 2.7 7 km ENE of Wilkerson, California
  12. 1.8 7 km NE of Wilkerson, California
  13. 1.6 7 km NE of Wilkerson, California
  14. 1.9 7 km NE of Wilkerson, California
  15. 1.8 23km NE of Independence, 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 4.8 on 2016-02-16 — it released about 50,000 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.