QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 3.5mb_lg

9 km S of Hill City, Kansas

· 11 km deep · released about 2.7 tons of TNT

Felt it? Tell USGS Check my area
10 km30 km60 km120 km N Graham County 9 kmTrego County 40 kmRooks County 44 kmSheridan County 53 kmNorton County 56 kmEllis County 60 kmGove County 69 kmPhillips County 70 kmDecatur County 78 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 3.5 (mb_lg)
Depth
11 km below the surface
Felt
23 reports · strongest reported intensity V
Measured shaking
intensity IV (ShakeMap)
Nearest
Graham County, 9 km NNW
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 406 days ago

This was a small earthquake. Shaking like this is often felt indoors nearby and very rarely causes damage. 23 people have reported feeling it to USGS.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 2.7 tons of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 4.5 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 63,000× the energy of this one
  2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 2,800× the energy of this one
  3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 2,000× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 3.5 about 2.7 tons of TNT
  5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 5.6× 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 39.2789, -99.8333. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Graham County, KS 9 km (6 mi) SSE of here earthquakes near Graham County
Trego County, KS 40 km (25 mi) N of here earthquakes near Trego County
Rooks County, KS 44 km (28 mi) W of here earthquakes near Rooks County
Sheridan County, KS 53 km (33 mi) E of here earthquakes near Sheridan County
Norton County, KS 56 km (35 mi) S of here earthquakes near Norton County
Ellis County, KS 60 km (37 mi) NW of here earthquakes near Ellis County

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

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 2.4 12 km NE of Damar, Kansas
  2. 2.8 10 km SSW of Stockton, Kansas
  3. 2.5 1 km NE of Zurich, Kansas
  4. 2.5 3 km NE of Bogue, Kansas
  5. 2.8 16 km S of Hill City, Kansas
  6. 3.0 2 km SW of Zurich, Kansas
  7. 2.7 2 km E of Hill City, Kansas
  8. 2.6 6 km SE of Hill City, Kansas
  9. 2.7 11 km NW of Stockton, Kansas
  10. 2.1 9 km SW of Bogue, Kansas
  11. 2.7 17 km NNE of Collyer, Kansas
  12. 2.5 7 km S of Hill City, Kansas
  13. 2.4 11 km SSE of Hill City, Kansas
  14. 2.3 10 km SE of Hill City, Kansas
  15. 2.3 10 km SSE of Hill City, Kansas

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 4.6 on 2019-06-22 — it released about 45 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.