64 km SE of King Cove, Alaska

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

At this magnitude and depth, people at rest would likely notice it out to about 83 km (52 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 15 tons of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 5.0 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 11,000× the energy of this one
2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 500× the energy of this one
3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 350× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 4.0 about 15 tons of TNT
5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 32× 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 6.1 on 2020-07-28 — about 1,400 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record lists 48 earthquakes of M5 or more within 50 km; the five largest:

1. 7.1 90 km SE of King Cove, Alaska · 29 km ESE of this epicentre May 14, 1948
2. 7.0 71 km SE of King Cove, Alaska · 10 km S of this epicentre May 30, 1991
3. 6.8 73 km SW of Sand Point, Alaska · 30 km NE of this epicentre Jul 2, 1922
4. 6.7 68 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska · 20 km SW of this epicentre Apr 29, 1937
5. 6.6 72 km SE of King Cove, Alaska · 9 km SSE of this epicentre Jan 28, 1963

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 54.6600, -161.5901. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

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

Aftershocks so far

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

1. 3.5 88 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 03:27 UTC
2. 3.0 95 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 02:18 UTC
3. 2.4 99 km SE of King Cove, Alaska 21:54 UTC
4. 2.4 87 km SE of King Cove, Alaska 01:22 UTC
5. 2.8 91 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 04:37 UTC
6. 2.4 86 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 17:50 UTC
7. 2.6 103 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 00:02 UTC
8. 2.5 65 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 13:29 UTC
9. 2.6 97 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 06:37 UTC
10. 2.6 57 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 10:28 UTC
11. 3.0 98 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 22:39 UTC
12. 2.6 103 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 00:45 UTC
13. 2.6 99 km SSE of King Cove, Alaska 16:07 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 23:40 UTC. QuakeIndex does not forecast aftershocks. When USGS issues an operational aftershock forecast it appears on the USGS event page.

Revisions

USGS refines a solution as more stations report. Every change we have seen is listed here.

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.