The March 22, 1957 earthquake
M5.3San Francisco, California
A magnitude 5.3 earthquake, centred in San Mateo County. The 269th strongest in California’s record since 1900, and the strongest within 50 miles since a magnitude 5.8 on September 4, 1955. 1 aftershock of magnitude 2.5 or more followed within 30 days.
The earthquake
- Magnitude
- 5.3
- local magnitude (ml)
- Depth
- —
- Not recorded
- Local time
- Friday, March 22, 1957
- 11:44 PST; 19:44 UTC
- In California’s record
- 269th
- strongest of 97,065 since 1900
USGS ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog, event ushis2195 (“The 1957 San Francisco, California Earthquake”). 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
4.2
Largest aftershock, Mar 23, 1957
1
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 Mateo CountyCA · inside
- San Francisco CountyCA · 3.0 mi
- Marin CountyCA · 10.7 mi
- Alameda CountyCA · 11.6 mi
- Contra Costa CountyCA · 17.5 mi
- Santa Clara CountyCA · 22.9 mi
- Solano CountyCA · 29.6 mi
- Sonoma CountyCA · 30.7 mi
- Santa Cruz CountyCA · 32.0 mi
- Napa CountyCA · 34.0 mi
- Sacramento CountyCA · 43.7 mi
Earthquakes around the epicentre
825 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
- April 18, 1906M7.9
- August 2, 1903M6.2
- June 11, 1903M6.1
- September 4, 1955M5.8
- November 8, 1914M5.5
- October 24, 1926M5.5
- December 13, 1933M5.0
USGS ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog. Local time is the time zone of the county nearest the epicentre. Magnitudes are as the catalogue reports them.