QuakeIndex

Earthquake · automatic estimate, may change

M 1.5ml

9 km NW of Benton, California

· 0.3 km deep · released about 5.4 lb of TNT

Felt it? Tell USGS Check my area
10 km30 km60 km120 km N Mono County 29 kmMineral County 70 kmEsmeralda County 81 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 1.5 (ml)
Depth
0.3 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Nearest
Mono County, 29 km W
Status
Automatic — a machine’s first estimate, which may change

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 2080 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 5.4 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 2.5 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 2,800,000× the energy of this one
  2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 2,000,000× the energy of this one
  3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 180× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 1.5 about 5.4 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 37.8907, -118.5435. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Mono County, CA 29 km (18 mi) E of here earthquakes near Mono County
Mineral County, NV 70 km (44 mi) S of here earthquakes near Mineral County
Esmeralda County, NV 81 km (50 mi) W of here earthquakes near Esmeralda County
Madera County, CA 131 km (81 mi) NE of here earthquakes near Madera County
Alpine County, CA 136 km (85 mi) SE of here earthquakes near Alpine County
Douglas County, NV 146 km (91 mi) SE of here earthquakes near Douglas County

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

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 2.0 40km NNE of Toms Place, CA
  2. 1.8 13km W of Toms Place, CA
  3. 2.0 15km SE of Mammoth Lakes, CA
  4. 2.1 29km SE of Bodie, CA
  5. 1.6 12km ESE of Mammoth Lakes, CA
  6. 2.3 40km NNE of Toms Place, CA
  7. 1.7 40km NNE of Toms Place, CA
  8. 1.8 25 km S of Mina, Nevada
  9. 1.8 41km NNE of Toms Place, CA
  10. 2.2 13km W of Toms Place, CA
  11. 1.6 4km E of Mammoth Lakes, CA
  12. 2.6 4km E of Mammoth Lakes, CA
  13. 1.5 38km SSW of Qualeys Camp, NV
  14. 1.7 26 km S of Mina, Nevada
  15. 1.6 9km S of Toms Place, 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 5.2 on 2020-04-11 — it released about 410,000 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.