QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 1.5ml

15km SW of Searles Valley, CA

· 1.4 km deep · released about 5.6 lb of TNT

Felt it? Tell USGS Check my area
10 km30 km60 km120 km N Inyo County 101 kmKern 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 1.5 (ml)
Depth
1.4 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Nearest
Inyo County, 101 km N
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 1395 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 5.6 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 2,700,000× the energy of this one
  2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 1,900,000× the energy of this one
  3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 170× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 1.5 about 5.6 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 35.6615, -117.5005. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Inyo County, CA 101 km (62 mi) S of here earthquakes near Inyo County
Kern County, CA 117 km (72 mi) ENE of here earthquakes near Kern County
Tulare County, CA 131 km (82 mi) ESE of here earthquakes near Tulare County
San Bernardino County, CA 149 km (93 mi) NW of here earthquakes near San Bernardino County

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

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 2.2 24km SSE of Trona, CA
  2. 1.8 15km ENE of Ridgecrest, CA
  3. 1.6 11km ENE of Ridgecrest, CA
  4. 1.8 18km E of Ridgecrest, CA
  5. 2.4 25km E of Johannesburg, CA
  6. 3.1 7km ESE of Ridgecrest, CA
  7. 2.2 25km N of Searles Valley, CA
  8. 1.5 13km ENE of Ridgecrest, CA
  9. 2.5 13km NNE of Ridgecrest, CA
  10. 2.3 15km SSW of Searles Valley, CA
  11. 1.5 14km NE of Ridgecrest, CA
  12. 1.8 14km NE of Ridgecrest, CA
  13. 2.4 12km ESE of Coso Junction, CA
  14. 2.6 14km NNE of Ridgecrest, CA
  15. 2.1 7km SE of Ridgecrest, 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 240,000,000 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.