EARTHQUAKEM4.6

M4.6 earthquake near False Pass, Alaska

Map: the earthquake near False Pass, Alaska, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 4.6 earthquake struck 147 km (91 mi) south-southeast of False Pass, Alaska on Thursday, November 5, 2026 at 23:04 UTC, at a depth of 16 km (10 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Shallow quakes like this one shake the surface hardest.

USGS’s PAGER impact estimate is GREEN: little or no damage expected.

MagnitudeM4.6
Depth16 km (10 mi)
Time (UTC)Nov 5 23:04
Location53.55°N 162.95°W
Nearest townFalse Pass · 147 km
Energy120 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+2
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
See it on the live 3D globe →Watch live on YouTube🔔 Get alerts near you

Why here?

This earthquake struck about 54 km (34 mi) from the boundary between the North American and Pacific plates. Most earthquakes happen along plate boundaries like this one, where the pieces of Earth’s outer shell collide, pull apart or grind past each other. Stress builds up over years until the rock suddenly slips.

The red lines on the map are plate boundaries.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 3 on the Modified Mercalli scale: weak. USGS’s PAGER system estimates it most likely caused no deaths (95 percent probability). Early estimates are revised as reports come in.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 4.6 released roughly the energy of 120 tons of TNT. That is about 7.9 times the energy of a magnitude 4.0, a quake people nearby feel but that rarely causes damage. The strongest earthquake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5 in Chile in 1960, released about 22,000,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 24 hours after it, USGS recorded 2 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). The largest was a magnitude 3.6 on November 5 at 23:29 UTC.

A stronger magnitude 4.7 followed on November 6 at 02:35 UTC, about 9 km (6 mi) away, so this one is now considered a foreshock.

Outside the United States, USGS mainly lists quakes of about magnitude 4 and up, so smaller aftershocks there are undercounted.

Earthquake history here

Before this earthquake, USGS had recorded 97 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger within 300 km (186 mi) since 1900. The strongest:

Official details, updates and the shaking map: USGS event page.

See every earthquake on November 5, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

More from around the world