179 km ESE of Atka, Alaska

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 11 km (7 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 950 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 4.0 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 350,000× the energy of this one
2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 16,000× the energy of this one
3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 11,000× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 3.0 about 950 lb of TNT

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 5.9 on 2018-08-25 — about 22,000 times the energy of this one.

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

1. 7.3 Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska · 26 km NNW of this epicentre Jun 24, 2011
2. 6.9 170 km E of Atka, Alaska · 36 km N of this epicentre Sep 2, 2011
3. 6.5 143 km ESE of Atka, Alaska · 43 km WSW of this epicentre Oct 14, 1960
4. 6.3 143 km E of Atka, Alaska · 38 km WNW of this epicentre Apr 5, 1957
5. 6.1 185 km ESE of Atka, Alaska · 6 km E of this epicentre Dec 6, 1930

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 51.8527, -171.6446. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Aftershocks so far

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

1. 4.3 178 km ESE of Atka, Alaska 16:35 UTC
2. 3.1 173 km E of Atka, Alaska 09:48 UTC
3. 3.6 184 km WSW of Nikolski, Alaska 22:52 UTC
4. 3.0 163 km ESE of Atka, Alaska 01:52 UTC
5. 3.7 182 km WSW of Nikolski, Alaska 00:15 UTC
6. 3.1 195 km WSW of Nikolski, Alaska 19:24 UTC
7. 4.2 193 km E of Atka, Alaska 19:21 UTC
8. 3.0 192 km E of Atka, Alaska 10:55 UTC
9. 4.0 195 km E of Atka, Alaska 10:44 UTC
10. 3.3 190 km E of Atka, Alaska 10:36 UTC
11. 3.2 139 km E of Atka, Alaska 19:31 UTC
12. 3.0 188 km E of Atka, Alaska 18:05 UTC
13. 3.6 155 km ESE of Atka, Alaska 12:02 UTC
14. 4.3 142 km E of Atka, Alaska 10:34 UTC
15. 3.2 182 km ESE of Atka, Alaska 14:37 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 11:38 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.