QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 3.0ml

26 km WNW of Desert Center, CA

· -0.8 km deep · released about 890 lb of TNT

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10 km30 km60 km120 km N Riverside County 34 kmImperial County 91 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 3.0 (ml)
Depth
-0.8 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Nearest
Riverside County, 34 km WSW
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 853 days ago

This was a small earthquake. Shaking like this is often felt indoors nearby and very rarely causes damage.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 890 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 4.0 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 380,000× the energy of this one
  2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 17,000× the energy of this one
  3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 12,000× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 3.0 about 890 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 33.8240, -115.6552. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Riverside County, CA 34 km (21 mi) ENE of here earthquakes near Riverside County
Imperial County, CA 91 km (57 mi) NNW of here earthquakes near Imperial County
San Bernardino County, CA 125 km (77 mi) SSE of here earthquakes near San Bernardino County
San Diego County, CA 137 km (85 mi) NE 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

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

  1. 1.9 29 km SE of Twentynine Palms, CA
  2. 1.9 20 km NW of Desert Center, CA
  3. 1.6 20 km NW of Desert Center, CA
  4. 1.9 13 km NNW of Bombay Beach, CA
  5. 2.8 16 km NE of Coachella, CA
  6. 2.1 26 km NE of Thermal, CA
  7. 2.1 20 km NW of Desert Center, CA
  8. 2.4 21 km NW of Desert Center, CA
  9. 2.4 16 km NE of Coachella, CA
  10. 2.0 22 km NE of Thermal, CA
  11. 1.8 22 km NE of Thermal, CA
  12. 2.2 22 km NE of Thermal, CA
  13. 2.1 22 km NE of Thermal, CA
  14. 2.0 22 km NE of Thermal, CA
  15. 2.4 26 km NE of Thermal, 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 4.2 on 2019-07-22 — it released about 68 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.