QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 3.8md

40 km SE of Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands

· 31 km deep · released about 6.8 tons of TNT

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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 3.8 (md)
Depth
31 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Nearest
Vieques Municipio, 128 km WNW
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 1114 days ago

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

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 6.8 tons of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 4.8 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 25,000× the energy of this one
  2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 1,100× the energy of this one
  3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 790× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 3.8 about 6.8 tons of TNT
  5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 14× more

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 17.5156, -64.4118. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Vieques Municipio, PR 128 km (79 mi) ESE of here earthquakes near Vieques Municipio
Culebra Municipio, PR 131 km (81 mi) SE of here earthquakes near Culebra Municipio

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

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 3.0 48 km ENE of Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands
  2. 3.1 63 km E of Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands
  3. 3.1 30 km SSE of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
  4. 3.1 7 km S of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
  5. 2.7 22 km NNE of Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands
  6. 3.4 38 km SSW of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
  7. 3.1 36 km SSW of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
  8. 3.4 20 km SSW of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
  9. 3.3 14 km SW of Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

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 4.1 on 2017-10-03 — it released about 3.1 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.