Up-to-the-minute Southern California
Earthquake Map

** This map only displays for Java-enabled browsers.

This map shows the last approximately 500 earthquakes detected by seismographs in southern California. Earthquake locations are updated based on Caltech's real-time picker. These locations are received over e-mail, usually within a few minutes of the earthquake's occurrence. Note that since these locations have not been human-reviewed, they may contain errors.

Notes:

• To zoom in on an area: Click and drag a rectangle with the mouse around the area to zoom in on. The same image is used for all zoom levels, so if you zoom way in, the map will be very pixellated. If the rectangle you drag is exactly the shape you get, so if you drag a very narrow rectangle down one side, you will get a narrow triangle. We may try to modify this behavior at a later date, but for now that is just the way it is.
• The fifty most recent earthquakes are shown in orange, except the most recent earthquake which is shown in red. Earthquake faults are also shown in red.
• If you have questions, check our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.
• If you have any difficulties using this page or just want to comment on it, send email to webmaster@crustal.ucsb.edu. All email will be read, but, because of the volume of email, we will not be able to respond to every email. Unfortunately, we are unable to respond to requests for additional information about particular earthquakes. Look in our list of "Other Web sites of interest" below for other sites that may have pertinent information. If a particular earthquake you are interested in does not show up right away at the USGS or Caltech sites, check in on those sites later. Sometimes there are delays for those sites to post information. But when info is posted there, it is much more accurate than the information shown at this site.

Other Web sites of interest:

• A map of Recent Earthquake Activity hosted by SCEC.
• U. C. Santa Barbara's Institute for Crustal Studies (the place where this page was produced)
• Cal Tech's Seismo Lab (where the earthquake locations for this page were determined)
• Understanding Earthquakes - general interest earthquake information
• Santa Barbara Earthquake History - historical accounts and photographs

This program was written by Grant Lindley, based on the program xquakes by Aaron Martin. Background image was produced by Geoff Ely.