QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 4.2mb

100 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska

· 27 km deep · released about 30 tons of TNT

10 km30 km60 km120 km N
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 4.2 (mb)
Depth
27 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 2098 days ago

This was a light earthquake. It is usually felt clearly nearby and can rattle windows and dishes, but damage is uncommon.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 30 tons of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 5.2 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 5,600× the energy of this one
  2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 250× the energy of this one
  3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 180× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 4.2 about 30 tons of TNT
  5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 63× 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 54.5770, -159.6638. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 4.7 131 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  2. 3.7 94 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  3. 3.2 106 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  4. 3.3 112 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  5. 3.3 146 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  6. 2.9 143 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  7. 3.2 118 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  8. 4.0 136 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  9. 3.2 108 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  10. 3.2 101 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  11. 3.5 140 km SSE of Sand Point, AK
  12. 3.4 127 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  13. 4.7 south of Alaska
  14. 3.7 132 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska
  15. 3.5 93 km SSE of Sand Point, Alaska

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 7.6 on 2020-10-19 — it released about 130,000 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.