M6.0 Earthquake Antelope Valley, CA, Jul 8, 2021

Map

Where this earthquake was located, with the others nearby. Select one for its page.

The earthquake

Magnitude: 6.0 (Mw, moment), strong
Magnitude from: Northern California Seismic System
Local time: Thu, Jul 8, 2021, 3:49 PM PDT
UTC: 2021-07-08 22:49:48 UTC
Depth: 7.5 km (4.6 mi), shallow
Epicenter: 38.508° N, 119.500° W
Region: California
Felt reports: 25,987
Strongest shaking: VII, very strong shaking
PAGER alert: Green
Tsunami flag: No
Status: Reviewed by a seismologist

Magnitude estimates

Different scales measure different things and differ by a few tenths. The USGS marks one as preferred, and it is the one this page uses.

Mag.	Scale	Computed by	Notes
6.0	Mw, moment	Northern California Seismic System	Preferred · Final · 0 stations
6.0	Mww, W-phase moment	USGS National Earthquake Information Center	Reviewed · ±0.02 · 234 stations
5.8	ML, local (Richter)	Nevada Seismological Laboratory	Reviewed · ±0.21 · 4 stations
4.8	Mw, moment	EW	Preliminary · ±0.4 · 4 stations
5.95	Mw, moment	ISC-GEM global catalog	Final · ±0.1
6.1	Mi	NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center	First automatic solution · Reviewed · 35 stations
5.93	Mw, moment	Northern California Seismic System	Moment tensor · Reviewed
5.8	Mwb, body-wave moment	USGS National Earthquake Information Center	Moment tensor · Reviewed
5.8	Mwr, regional moment	USGS National Earthquake Information Center	Moment tensor · Reviewed
5.8	Mwr, regional moment	Nevada Seismological Laboratory	Moment tensor · Reviewed
6.03	Mw, moment	USGS finite-fault model	Finite-fault model · Reviewed

What happened

The USGS’s account of the effects of this earthquake.

Rockslides occurred on U.S. Route 395 near Coleville.

From the USGS event page for nc73584926. U.S. Geological Survey text and figures are in the public domain.

Shaking

The USGS ShakeMap: shaking estimated from seismic stations and the quake’s size, on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale.

Strongest estimated: VII, very strong shaking
Peak ground acceleration: 32.7% of gravity
Peak ground velocity: 3.2 cm/s
Map: Automatic

USGS ShakeMap: estimated shaking intensity around the epicenter — Estimated shaking intensity. Map: USGS ShakeMap.

Did you feel it?

25,987 people reported to the USGS what they felt; the strongest reported shaking was VI, strong shaking.

Estimated impact

The USGS PAGER system estimates deaths and economic losses from the shaking and the population and buildings exposed to it.

Alert level: Green: little or no damage or loss of life expected

Deaths: estimated chance of each range
Range	Chance
Under 1	65%
1 to 10	30%
10 to 100	4%
100 to 1,000	Under 1%
1,000 to 10,000	Under 1%
10,000 to 100,000	Under 1%
100,000 to 10,000,000	Under 1%

Economic losses: estimated chance of each range
Range, million USD	Chance
Under 1	93%
1 to 10	6%
10 to 100	Under 1%
100 to 1,000	Under 1%
1,000 to 10,000	Under 1%
10,000 to 100,000	Under 1%
100,000 to 10,000,000	Under 1%

Fault motion and ground failure

How the rock slipped, from the moment tensor, and the USGS estimate of landslides and liquefaction.

Moment magnitude: 5.9 Mw
Landslide alert: Yellow
Liquefaction alert: Green

Rupture model

How far the rock on each part of the fault slid, from a model fitted to seismic waves recorded around the world.

USGS finite-fault model: slip on the fault plane, in meters — Slip on the fault plane, in meters, from the USGS finite-fault model (moment magnitude 6.03). Model: USGS.

Tectonic setting

Why earthquakes happen here, from the USGS tectonic summary.

The July 8, 2021 M 6.0 earthquake in Antelope Valley, California, 32 km south-southwest of Smith Valley, Nevada, occurred as the result of normal faulting in the shallow crust of the North America plate. Preliminary focal mechanism solutions for the event, which describe the style of faulting in an earthquake, indicate slip likely occurred on a moderately dipping fault striking roughly north-south. This motion is consistent with east-west oriented extension that is common in Nevada and eastern California. This earthquake occurred along the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada, a major physiographic boundary along the California-Nevada border.

Tectonically, this event occurred at the margin of the stable Sierra Nevada microplate and the Walker Lane, a zone of distributed shear. The Sierra Nevada microplate moves at about 12 mm/yr to the northwest relative to the North American plate. The Sierra Nevada microplate is a part of the broader Pacific-North America plate boundary system of California, and roughly 25% of the 5 cm/yr total plate boundary motion occurs east of the Sierra Nevada. Earthquakes in the vicinity of the July 8 earthquake include both normal faulting earthquakes and strike-slip earthquakes.

In the past 100 years, 33 earthquakes of M5+ or larger have occurred within 100 km of the July 8 earthquake. The largest of these were a M6.1 earthquake 36 km to the northwest in September 1994 and a M6.1 earthquake 63 km to the north in June 1933.

From the USGS event page for nc73584926. U.S. Geological Survey text and figures are in the public domain.

How well it is located

Reviewed by a seismologist.

Location uncertainty: About 0.1 km horizontally, 0.3 km in depth
Depth from: From location
Station coverage gap: 100°
Stations used: 42

Nearest places

Distance and direction from each place to the epicenter, with its forecast.

Nearby

Within 100 km, magnitude 3.0 and up: 71 in the 60 days after this one and 0 in the 30 days before it.

After

The first 60 of 71.

Sources

From the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program and its partner networks, event nc73584926 (also filed as ew1625784601, ew1625784613, us6000etc0, pt21189000, nn00811145, iscgem620783812). Read Mon, Oct 5, 2026, 2:46 AM UTC.