On June 23, 2019, a M5.6 earthquake hit off Petrolia, northern California at 03:50am at a depth of 9.4km (5.8 miles).
The quake was reported by more than 2,500 people on the USGS website.
The Cascadia region is very active these days. After a series of moderately strong quakes off the Oregon Coast on June 22, 2019, now this M5.6 just quake struck just at the southern tip of the Cascadia subduction zone.
The 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck 3.1 miles (5 kilometers) south-southwest of the small community of Petrolia in northern California on Saturday evening, June 22. The tremor struck at 8:53 p.m. local time and was estimated to have a depth of 5.8 miles (9.4 km).
Local reports
One local commented on the site that the quake could be felt for a “solid ten seconds” and another said they felt a “pretty good shake in McKinleyville.”
In Petrolia, one local commented that the quake was a “good one.”
At the moment, there is no official information about damage or casualties in the region.
“It was like a toboggan ride,” they added.
“We counted 25 seconds of varied shaking. We took no action and stayed on the couch. The pup jumped off. No damage noted.
Damage
Damage ranged from relatively small in Ferndale to some serious liquor spillage in Redway.
The news comes after earlier this month about 1,000 earthquakes of 4.0-magnitude or less rocked the southern part of the state in what scholars described as “swarms” of seismic activity.
Petrolia, in Humboldt County, has an estimated population of a few hundred people, and is located 253 miles north of San Francisco in a wilderness area that experiences frequent earthquake activity.
The April 25, 1992, Petrolia earthquake (M7.1) occurred at the southern tip of the Cascadia subduction zone. This is the largest thrust earthquake ever recorded instrumentally in the Cascadia subduction zone. The earthquake was followed by two large strike‐slip aftershocks (both Ms 6.6).
