161 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands

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 67 km (42 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 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.

For this area

The largest earthquake within 50 km since 2016 was M 5.0 on 2019-10-06 — about 61 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record lists 2 earthquakes of M5 or more within 50 km:

1. 6.2 131 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands · 31 km SW of this epicentre Sep 6, 1919
2. 5.0 127 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands · 36 km SSW of this epicentre Jan 13, 1993

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 19.7251, -64.3350. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Aftershocks so far

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

1. 3.7 164 km NE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 07:35 UTC
2. 3.5 136 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 10:16 UTC
3. 3.1 122 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 09:13 UTC
4. 3.7 135 km N of Charlotte Amalie, U.S. Virgin Islands 01:03 UTC
5. 3.8 118 km N of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 12:35 UTC
6. 3.8 141 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 08:28 UTC
7. 3.5 152 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 18:15 UTC
8. 3.4 153 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 20:10 UTC
9. 3.8 140 km N of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 03:06 UTC
10. 4.4 150 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 17:25 UTC
11. 3.8 134 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 08:02 UTC
12. 4.0 140 km N of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 04:18 UTC
13. 3.4 141 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 06:46 UTC
14. 3.7 143 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 01:03 UTC
15. 2.9 124 km NNE of Cruz Bay, U.S. Virgin Islands 00:57 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 19:27 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.