August 17, 1972 Earthquake: W. Solomon Sea
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck W. Solomon Sea on August 17, 1972 at 23:44:05 UTC, 10 km below the surface. It caused a tsunami.
Map
Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.
The earthquake
- Date
- August 17, 1972
- Time
- 23:44:05 UTC
- Place
- W. Solomon Sea
- Magnitude
- 7.1 (Ms)
- Magnitude scales
- Ms 7.1 · mb 6.4
- Focal depth
- 10 km (6 mi)
- Intensity
- V, moderate shaking, on the Modified Mercalli scale
- Tsunami
- Yes: the tsunami it caused
- Epicenter
- 6.000° S, 152.900° E
- Country
- Solomon Sea
- Region
- Central and South Pacific
- USGS record
- The USGS’s page for this earthquake
Ms: surface-wave magnitude. mb: body-wave (P-wave) magnitude. NCEI’s headline magnitude is the best of these for the earthquake.
The toll
The record gives no deaths, injuries or damage for this earthquake.
Sources NCEI cites
The publications NCEI lists for this record. The numbers match the “reference #” notes in its account above.
- #417 Soloviev, S L., Ch. N. Go, and Kh. S. Kim (1992). Catalog of tsunamis in the Pacific, 1969-1982. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, 208 p. Translated from Russian by Amerind Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India, 1988 [Originally published in Russian in 1986].
- #1053 National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) (1971 to 2013). Preliminary Determination of Epicenters (PDE), a weekly and monthly publication, National Earthquake Information Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Golden, Colorado, 1971 to 2013.
Other significant earthquakes nearby
Within 200 km, the deadliest first.
- December 22, 1983, Ulawun, Rabaul, Papua New Guinea
- July 14, 1971, Bougainville, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
- March 10, 1989, Rabaul, New Britain, Papua New Guinea
- February 12, 1968, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
- November 16, 2000, New Ireland, New Britain, Papua New Guinea
- October 10, 1955, Bismarck Sea, Papua New Guinea
- March 6, 1938, Papua New Guinea
- March 29, 2018, Khatlon, Tajikistan
- May 5, 2015, Papua New Guinea
- June 22, 1768, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
- July 26, 1971, Bismarck Sea Rabaul, Papua New Guinea
- October 19, 1949, Bismarck Sea, Papua New Guinea
- June 23, 2009, Solomon Sea, Papua New Guinea
- November 17, 2000, New Britain, Papua New Guinea
- July 13, 2017, Papua New Guinea
More
Significant earthquakes of 1972The 1900sEvery quake the USGS located in 1972Recent earthquakes near hereThis day in weather history
Sources
Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI earthquake 6441. The written accounts and the magnitude estimates are from the USGS earthquake catalog, event iscgem770672, matched to this record by time, place and magnitude.