QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 3.6mw

45 km ENE of San Clemente Is. (SE tip), CA

· 6.0 km deep · released about 3.8 tons of TNT

Felt it? Tell USGS Check my area
10 km30 km60 km120 km N Orange County 76 kmSan Diego County 106 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 3.6 (mw)
Depth
6.0 km below the surface
Felt
2011 reports · strongest reported intensity IV
Measured shaking
intensity III (ShakeMap)
Tsunami
USGS flagged this event for tsunami evaluation. Follow tsunami.gov for official messages.
Nearest
Orange County, 76 km N
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 1000 days ago

This was a small earthquake. Shaking like this is often felt indoors nearby and very rarely causes damage. 2011 people have reported feeling it to USGS.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 3.8 tons of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 4.6 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 45,000× the energy of this one
  2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 2,000× the energy of this one
  3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 1,400× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 3.6 about 3.8 tons of TNT
  5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 7.9× 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 33.0018, -117.9177. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Orange County, CA 76 km (47 mi) S of here earthquakes near Orange County
San Diego County, CA 106 km (66 mi) W of here earthquakes near San Diego County

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

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 1.8 30 km SSW of Dana Point, CA
  2. 1.8 27 km WNW of La Jolla, CA
  3. 2.3 26 km SSW of Newport Beach, CA
  4. 1.8 50 km WSW of Encinitas, CA
  5. 2.6 27 km WSW of Dana Point, CA
  6. 2.6 27 km WSW of Dana Point, CA
  7. 2.8 27 km WSW of Dana Point, CA
  8. 1.6 42 km WSW of Encinitas, CA
  9. 2.4 40 km WSW of Carlsbad, CA
  10. 2.6 6 km SE of San Clemente Is. (SE tip), CA
  11. 1.7 33 km W of La Jolla, CA
  12. 3.0 25 km SE of San Clemente Is. (SE tip), CA
  13. 2.7 42 km NE of San Clemente Is. (SE tip), CA
  14. 2.3 6 km SSE of San Clemente Is. (SE tip), CA
  15. 3.0 8 km SSE of San Clemente Is. (SE tip), 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.

On USGS

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