150 km W of Trinidad, CA

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

At this magnitude and depth, people at rest would likely notice it out to about 31 km (19 mi) from the epicentre. Estimated from magnitude, depth and distance with the intensity equation USGS Did You Feel It? uses; felt reports, where there are any, are the measurement.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 720 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 3.9 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 21,000× the energy of this one
2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 15,000× the energy of this one
3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 1.3× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 2.9 about 720 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 4.3 on 2016-12-06 — about 120 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record since 1900 lists no earthquake of M5 or more within 50 km.

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 41.2938, -125.9068. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Aftershocks so far

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

1. 2.1 140 km W of Crescent City, California 05:58 UTC
2. 3.3 126 km WSW of Crescent City, CA 17:24 UTC
3. 2.7 167 km W of Big Lagoon, California 14:54 UTC
4. 3.1 149 km W of Crescent City, CA 00:24 UTC
5. 3.6 146 km WNW of Trinidad, CA 10:31 UTC
6. 2.5 163 km WNW of Indianola, California 01:54 UTC
7. 2.8 109 km WNW of Trinidad, CA 18:40 UTC
8. 2.1 118 km WSW of Crescent City, California 07:49 UTC
9. 2.9 109 km WNW of Trinidad, CA 02:41 UTC
10. 1.6 105 km WSW of Crescent City, California 13:25 UTC
11. 3.0 113 km WNW of Bayview, CA 12:54 UTC
12. 2.7 113 km WNW of Trinidad, CA 19:50 UTC
13. 2.6 109 km WNW of Trinidad, CA 14:02 UTC
14. 2.7 176 km W of Crescent City, California 05:53 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 16:43 UTC. QuakeIndex does not forecast aftershocks. When USGS issues an operational aftershock forecast it appears on the USGS event page.

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.