mining explosion · reviewed by a seismologist
M 3.1ml
20 km N of Heron, Montana
- When
- Magnitude
- M 3.1 (ml)
- Depth
- 0.0 km below the surface
- Felt
- no reports yet
- Nearest
- Lincoln County, 48 km NE
- Status
- Reviewed by a seismologist
USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 219 days ago
This was a small earthquake. Shaking like this is often felt indoors nearby and very rarely causes damage.
USGS catalogues this as mining explosion, not an earthquake.
How big was it?
This earthquake released about 1,300 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 4.1 would have released about 32 times as much.
- Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 250,000× the energy of this one
- Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 11,000× the energy of this one
- Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 7,900× the energy of this one
- This earthquake M 3.1 about 1,300 lb of TNT
- Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 1.4× 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 48.2428, -115.9180. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Nearby places
| Place | Distance | Direction | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lincoln County, MT | 48 km (30 mi) | SW of here | earthquakes near Lincoln County |
| Bonner County, ID | 53 km (33 mi) | E of here | earthquakes near Bonner County |
| Boundary County, ID | 74 km (46 mi) | SE of here | earthquakes near Boundary County |
| Sanders County, MT | 77 km (48 mi) | NW of here | earthquakes near Sanders County |
| Kootenai County, ID | 86 km (53 mi) | NE of here | earthquakes near Kootenai County |
| Shoshone County, ID | 100 km (62 mi) | N of here | earthquakes near Shoshone County |
Places and coordinates from the US Census Bureau Gazetteer (2024). Distances are from the epicentre.
Aftershocks so far
No further earthquakes have been recorded within 50 km since this one.
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.
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.