Earthquake near South Lake Tahoe, CA

A magnitude 2.9 earthquake was recorded 10 km (6 mi) WSW of South Lake Tahoe, CA, at 11:58 pm PDT on 2 October 2026 (06:58 UTC). 66 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: Kingsbury, Tahoma, Minden, Gardnerville, Gardnerville Ranchos, Sunnyside-Tahoe City.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 700 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 22,000× 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 1.4× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 2.9 about 700 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 2020-03-21 — about 240 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record lists 4 earthquakes of M5 or more within 50 km:

1. 6.1 4 km S of Carter Springs, Nevada · 38 km ESE of this epicentre Sep 12, 1994
2. 5.1 10 km SE of South Lake Tahoe, California · 16 km E of this epicentre Dec 17, 1942
3. 5.1 8 km ESE of Mesa Vista, California · 35 km ESE of this epicentre Sep 12, 1994
4. 5.0 12 km S of South Lake Tahoe, California · 12 km SE of this epicentre Mar 22, 1953

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 38.8912, -120.0827. 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 08:15 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.