The July 29, 1951 earthquake
M5.0near Soledad, California
A magnitude 5.0 earthquake, centred in San Benito County. The 451st strongest in California’s record since 1900, and the strongest within 50 miles since a magnitude 5.2 on December 28, 1939. 1 aftershock of magnitude 2.5 or more followed within 30 days.
The earthquake
- Magnitude
- 5.0
- local magnitude (ml)
- Depth
- —
- Not recorded
- Local time
- Sunday, July 29, 1951
- 03:53 PDT; 10:53 UTC
- In California’s record
- 451st
- strongest of 97,065 since 1900
USGS ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog, event ushis1748 (“21 km NE of Soledad, California”). The USGS event page carries the ShakeMap, felt reports and the official summary.
Aftershocks
Earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 20 miles of the epicentre in the 30 days after.
1
Aftershocks in 30 days
4.9
Largest aftershock, Aug 6, 1951
0
On the first day
0
In the 7 days before
- The search radius is the surface rupture length expected for an earthquake of this magnitude (Wells and Coppersmith, 1994), at least 20 and at most 600 miles, so a great earthquake's sequence is counted along its whole fault.
- Before the modern seismic networks of the 1970s many small aftershocks went unrecorded, so early sequences read short.
Counties and cities within 50 miles
Distance from the epicentre to each county boundary (zero when inside) and to each city centre.
Counties
- San Benito CountyCA · inside
- Monterey CountyCA · 6.2 mi
- Merced CountyCA · 17.7 mi
- Fresno CountyCA · 18.2 mi
- Santa Clara CountyCA · 26.2 mi
- Santa Cruz CountyCA · 31.0 mi
- Stanislaus CountyCA · 38.2 mi
- Madera CountyCA · 44.7 mi
Cities, largest first
- SalinasCA · 26.1 mi
- GilroyCA · 36.8 mi
- WatsonvilleCA · 40.2 mi
- Los BanosCA · 38.2 mi
- HollisterCA · 22.3 mi
- Morgan HillCA · 45.7 mi
- SeasideCA · 35.3 mi
- MontereyCA · 38.9 mi
- SoledadCA · 12.7 mi
- MarinaCA · 34.3 mi
- GreenfieldCA · 18.2 mi
- Pacific GroveCA · 41.3 mi
Earthquakes around the epicentre
2,740 earthquakes of magnitude 3 or more within 50 miles of this epicentre since 1973.
Earlier earthquakes of magnitude 5 or more within 50 miles, strongest first
- July 1, 1911M6.5
- May 25, 1905M6.1
- July 25, 1926M5.8
- March 10, 1910M5.8
- August 6, 1916M5.8
- June 24, 1939M5.5
- October 5, 1920M5.2
- December 28, 1939M5.2
- December 3, 1931M5.1
- February 26, 1932M5.0
USGS ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog. Local time is the time zone of the county nearest the epicentre. Magnitudes are as the catalogue reports them.