QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 2.9ml

162 km W of Ferndale, California

· 10 km deep · released about 680 lb of TNT

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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 2.9 (ml)
Depth
10 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
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.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 680 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 3.9 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 22,000× the energy of this one
  2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 16,000× the energy of this one
  3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 1.4× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 2.9 about 680 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.

Where

Epicentre 40.3974, -126.1636. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Aftershocks so far

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

  1. 2.6 145 km W of Ferndale, California
  2. 2.5 157 km W of Ferndale, California
  3. 2.8 194 km W of Ferndale, California
  4. 2.6 173 km W of Ferndale, California
  5. 2.7 136 km W of Ferndale, California
  6. 3.8 161 km W of Ferndale, California
  7. 2.9 137 km W of Petrolia, CA
  8. 2.6 155 km W of Ferndale, California
  9. 3.0 151 km W of Ferndale, California
  10. 2.6 149 km W of Ferndale, California
  11. 2.7 171 km W of Ferndale, California

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 6.6 on 2016-12-08 — it released about 350,000 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.