Earthquake near Goleta, CA

A magnitude 1.7 earthquake was recorded 8 km (5 mi) SE of Goleta, CA, at 8:42 am PDT on 5 October 2026 (15:42 UTC). 1 person has reported feeling it to USGS. This was a minor earthquake. Quakes this small are rarely felt and do not cause damage.

Earthquakes near other towns within 30 km: Santa Barbara, Isla Vista, Mission Canyon, Montecito, Summerland, Toro Canyon.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 9.3 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 2.7 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 1,600,000× the energy of this one
2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 1,100,000× the energy of this one
3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 100× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 1.7 about 9.3 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.

For this area

The largest earthquake within 50 km since 2016 was M 4.1 on 2017-05-17 — about 4,000 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record lists 8 earthquakes of M5 or more within 50 km; the five largest:

1. 6.8 The 1925 Santa Barbara, California Earthquake · 10 km SSW of this epicentre Jun 29, 1925
2. 5.7 Near Los Alamos, California · 46 km WNW of this epicentre Jan 12, 1915
3. 5.5 30 km SW of Channel Islands Beach, California · 50 km SSE of this epicentre Feb 18, 1926
4. 5.5 10 km NE of Toro Canyon, California · 28 km ENE of this epicentre Jun 29, 1926
5. 5.5 The 1941 Santa Barbara, California Earthquake · 20 km ESE of this epicentre Jul 1, 1941

Since 2016: the QuakeIndex catalogue (US, M1.5+), built from the USGS FDSN event service. Before 2016: USGS ComCat, M5+ from 1900. Distances are between epicentres. This is the record, not a forecast.

Where

Epicentre 34.3850, -119.7733. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

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

Aftershocks so far

No further earthquakes have been recorded within 50 km since this one.

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 18:12 UTC. QuakeIndex does not forecast aftershocks. When USGS issues an operational aftershock forecast it appears on the USGS event page.

Revisions

USGS refines a solution as more stations report. Every change we have seen is listed here.

On USGS

• The official USGS event page — the source of record for every value above
• Did you feel it? Report it to USGS — reports go to USGS, not to us
• ShakeMap for this event, when USGS has produced one

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