QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 1.5ml

10km SW of Salton City, CA

· 3.6 km deep · released about 5.9 lb of TNT

Felt it? Tell USGS Check my area
10 km30 km60 km120 km N Riverside County 56 kmImperial County 66 kmSan Diego County 73 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 1.5 (ml)
Depth
3.6 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Nearest
Riverside County, 56 km N
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 1411 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 5.9 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 2.5 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 2,500,000× the energy of this one
  2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 1,800,000× the energy of this one
  3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 160× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 1.5 about 5.9 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 33.2308, -116.0280. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Riverside County, CA 56 km (35 mi) S of here earthquakes near Riverside County
Imperial County, CA 66 km (41 mi) WNW of here earthquakes near Imperial County
San Diego County, CA 73 km (46 mi) ENE 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

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

  1. 1.9 3km SSW of Salton City, CA
  2. 1.5 20km ESE of Anza, CA
  3. 1.7 10km E of Thermal, CA
  4. 2.3 19km ESE of Julian, CA
  5. 1.6 9km N of Borrego Springs, CA
  6. 1.9 2km ESE of Bombay Beach, CA
  7. 1.7 23km ESE of Ocotillo Wells, CA
  8. 2.3 11km WNW of Calipatria, CA
  9. 1.7 10km NNE of Ocotillo Wells, CA
  10. 1.5 15km E of Ocotillo Wells, CA
  11. 1.7 9km N of Borrego Springs, CA
  12. 2.6 12km NNW of Ocotillo, CA
  13. 1.7 10km ENE of Ocotillo Wells, CA
  14. 2.0 13km WSW of Salton City, CA
  15. 2.2 13km WSW of Salton City, 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 5.3 on 2021-06-05 — it released about 380,000 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.