QuakeIndex

Earthquake · automatic estimate, may change

M 1.6md

15 km N of Morgan Hill, CA

· 16 km deep · released about 6.6 lb of TNT

Felt it? Tell USGS Check my area
10 km30 km60 km120 km N Santa Clara County 6 kmSanta Cruz County 43 kmAlameda County 49 kmStanislaus County 65 kmSan Mateo County 67 kmContra Costa County 78 kmMerced County 82 kmSan Joaquin County 82 kmSan Benito County 87 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 1.6 (md)
Depth
16 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Nearest
Santa Clara County, 6 km SW
Status
Automatic — a machine’s first estimate, which may change

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 979 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 6.6 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 2.6 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 2,300,000× the energy of this one
  2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 1,600,000× the energy of this one
  3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 140× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 1.6 about 6.6 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 37.2617, -121.6403. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Santa Clara County, CA 6 km (4 mi) NE of here earthquakes near Santa Clara County
Santa Cruz County, CA 43 km (27 mi) NE of here earthquakes near Santa Cruz County
Alameda County, CA 49 km (31 mi) SSE of here earthquakes near Alameda County
Stanislaus County, CA 65 km (41 mi) WSW of here earthquakes near Stanislaus County
San Mateo County, CA 67 km (42 mi) ESE of here earthquakes near San Mateo County
Contra Costa County, CA 78 km (49 mi) SSE of here earthquakes near Contra Costa County

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

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 1.6 7 km N of Day Valley, CA
  2. 2.8 16 km E of Seven Trees, CA
  3. 1.6 8 km ENE of Gilroy, CA
  4. 1.6 9 km E of Gilroy, CA
  5. 1.6 2 km N of Livermore, CA
  6. 1.5 16 km N of Morgan Hill, CA
  7. 2.9 17 km SW of Westley, CA
  8. 2.4 8 km NE of Gilroy, CA
  9. 1.7 7 km ENE of Gilroy, CA
  10. 2.7 8 km NE of Gilroy, CA
  11. 2.1 1 km ESE of Aromas, CA
  12. 3.0 15 km N of Morgan Hill, CA
  13. 2.5 6 km SSW of Gilroy, CA
  14. 2.1 10 km NNE of Milpitas, CA
  15. 1.8 24 km SW of Patterson, 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 5.1 on 2022-10-25 — it released about 180,000 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.