QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 3.3ml

19km W of Johannesburg, CA

· 4.0 km deep · released about 1.5 tons of TNT

Felt it? Tell USGS Check my area
10 km30 km60 km120 km N Kern County 81 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 3.3 (ml)
Depth
4.0 km below the surface
Felt
12 reports · strongest reported intensity III
Nearest
Kern County, 81 km W
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 1864 days ago

This was a small earthquake. Shaking like this is often felt indoors nearby and very rarely causes damage. 12 people have reported feeling it to USGS.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 1.5 tons of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 4.3 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 110,000× the energy of this one
  2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 5,100× the energy of this one
  3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 3,600× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 3.3 about 1.5 tons of TNT
  5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 3.1× 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.

Where

Epicentre 35.3710, -117.8422. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Kern County, CA 81 km (50 mi) E of here earthquakes near Kern County
Tulare County, CA 128 km (79 mi) SE of here earthquakes near Tulare County
Ventura County, CA 163 km (101 mi) NE of here earthquakes near Ventura County

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

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 2.0 21km ESE of Ridgecrest, CA
  2. 1.7 14km SSW of Searles Valley, CA
  3. 1.5 10km W of Johannesburg, CA
  4. 1.6 17km SSW of Searles Valley, CA
  5. 1.8 13km SSW of Searles Valley, CA
  6. 2.4 13km WSW of Searles Valley, CA
  7. 1.8 15km NE of Ridgecrest, CA
  8. 1.6 5km NNW of Boron, CA
  9. 2.5 12km SSW of Searles Valley, CA
  10. 1.9 19km SSW of Searles Valley, CA
  11. 2.4 12km SSW of Searles Valley, CA
  12. 1.8 14km SSW of Searles Valley, CA
  13. 2.4 18km W of Searles Valley, CA
  14. 1.5 14km NE of Ridgecrest, CA
  15. 1.6 12km SSW of Searles Valley, 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 7.1 on 2019-07-06 — it released about 450,000 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.