Earthquake near White Center, WA

This was a minor earthquake. Quakes this small are rarely felt and do not cause damage.

At this magnitude and depth it was probably too small to be felt, even directly above it. 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.

Earthquakes near other towns within 30 km: Boulevard Park, Riverton, Burien, Columbia City, Tukwila, Bryn Mawr-Skyway.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 9 lb of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 2.7 would have released about 32 times as much.

1. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 1,700,000× the energy of this one
2. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 1,200,000× the energy of this one
3. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 110× the energy of this one
4. This earthquake M 1.7 about 9 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 4.6 on 2019-07-12 — about 25,000 times the energy of this one.

Before 2016, the USGS record lists 5 earthquakes of M5 or more within 50 km:

1. 6.7 1 km ENE of Dash Point, Washington · 22 km SSW of this epicentre Apr 29, 1965
2. 6.1 Puget Sound region, Washington · 34 km WSW of this epicentre Nov 13, 1939
3. 5.4 8 km NNE of Lake Marcel-Stillwater, Washington · 44 km NE of this epicentre May 3, 1996
4. 5.2 9 km NE of Lake Marcel-Stillwater, Washington · 46 km NE of this epicentre Jul 18, 1932
5. 5.0 3 km WSW of Des Moines, Washington · 15 km S of this epicentre Jan 29, 1995

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 47.5162, -122.3297. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

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

Aftershocks so far

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

1. 1.5 5 km WSW of Black Diamond, Washington 16:37 UTC
2. 1.7 1 km WSW of Burien, Washington 21:23 UTC
3. 1.6 2 km N of Edmonds, Washington 15:36 UTC
4. 1.9 3 km SE of Fife, Washington 03:42 UTC
5. 1.5 2 km ESE of Buckley, Washington 04:37 UTC
6. 1.9 3 km SSE of Woods Creek, Washington 20:54 UTC
7. 1.8 3 km S of Southworth, Washington 05:45 UTC
8. 1.6 6 km SSW of Port Ludlow, Washington 18:31 UTC
9. 1.7 1 km NE of White Center, Washington 20:34 UTC
10. 1.8 1 km E of Enetai, Washington 15:18 UTC
11. 2.2 3 km SW of Redmond, Washington 23:49 UTC
12. 1.7 2 km NW of Manchester, Washington 23:41 UTC
13. 2.5 4 km WSW of Artondale, Washington 03:26 UTC
14. 2.0 6 km WNW of Lofall, Washington 02:33 UTC
15. 1.7 10 km S of Seabeck, Washington 10:33 UTC

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of 22:08 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.