Earthquake near Big Bear City, CA

A magnitude 2.6 earthquake was recorded 4 km (2 mi) NNW of Big Bear City, CA, at 1:40 am PDT on 6 October 2026 (08:40 UTC). 18 people have reported feeling it to USGS. This was a small earthquake. Shaking like this is often felt indoors nearby and very rarely causes damage.

Earthquakes near other towns within 30 km: Big Bear Lake, Lucerne Valley, Running Springs.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 240 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 3.6 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 63,000× the energy of this one
2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 45,000× the energy of this one
3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 4× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 2.6 about 240 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 4.5 on 2018-05-08 — about 680 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record lists 28 earthquakes of M5 or more within 50 km; the five largest:

1. 7.3 The 1992 Landers, California Earthquake · 40 km ESE of this epicentre Jun 28, 1992
2. 6.3 The 1992 Big Bear, California Earthquake · 11 km SSE of this epicentre Jun 28, 1992
3. 6.2 3 km SE of San Bernardino, California · 43 km WSW of this epicentre Jul 23, 1923
4. 6.0 The 1986 North Palm Springs, California Earthquake · 40 km SE of this epicentre Jul 8, 1986
5. 5.8 3km NE of Yucca Valley, California · 45 km ESE of this epicentre Jun 28, 1992

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 34.2938, -116.8615. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

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

Aftershocks so far

1 earthquake has been recorded within 50 km since this one.

1. 0.5 5 km N of Big Bear City, CA 08:49 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 17:26 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.