Contact | RSS | EN | DE | EL | ES | FR | IT | RU

Strong mag. 6.1 earthquake - Solomon Sea, Papua New Guinea, on Sunday, Jan 16, 2022 at 11:52 pm (GMT +11) -

Strong magnitude 6.1 earthquake at 408 km depth

16 Jan 12:59 UTC: First to report: GFZ after 7 minutes.
16 Jan 13:01: Hypocenter depth recalculated from 401.0 to 399.0 km (from 249 to 248 mi). Epicenter location corrected by 3.5 km (2.2 mi) towards WNW.
16 Jan 13:09: Now using data updates from USGS

Earthquake details

Date & time	Jan 16, 2022 12:52:10 UTC -
Local time at epicenter	Sunday, Jan 16, 2022 at 11:52 pm (GMT +11)
Status	Confirmed
Magnitude	6.1
Depth	408.1 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude	6.4459°S / 154.8206°E (Solomon Sea, Papua New Guinea)
Antipode	6.446°N / 25.179°W
Shaking intensity	Light shaking
Felt	2 reports
Primary data source	USGS (United States Geological Survey)
Nearest volcano	Bagana (54 km / 34 mi)
Nearby towns and cities	910 km (565 mi) ENE of Port Moresby (pop: 283,700) \| Show on map \| Quakes nearby
Weather at epicenter at time of quake	Overcast Clouds 28.4°C (83 F), humidity: 72%, wind: 2 m/s (3 kts) from NE
Estimated seismic energy released	8.9 x 10¹³ joules (24.8 gigawatt hours, equivalent to 21301 tons of TNT or 1.3 atomic bombs!) \| about seismic energy

Show interactive Map

[smaller] [bigger]

Data for the same earthquake reported by different agencies

Info: The more agencies report about the same quake and post similar data, the more confidence you can have in the data. It takes normally up to a few hours until earthquake parameters are calculated with near-optimum precision.

Mag.	Depth	Location	Source
6.1	408 km	74 Km W of Panguna, Papua New Guinea	USGS
6.1	409 km	Papua New Guinea: BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.	EMSC
6.1	408 km	Papua New Guinea: Solomon Islands	RaspberryShake
5.7	384 km	Papua New Guinea: Near Port Moresby	RENASS
6.0	402 km	Papua New Guinea [Sea]	INGV
6.1	399 km	Papua New Guinea: Solomon Islands	GFZ
6.0	402 km	Papua New Guinea: Solomon Islands	GeoAu

Most recent quakes Top 20 past 24 hrs Quakes in Papua New Guinea

Seismograms

Seismic station: Tucson, Arizona (TUC/IU network) | Distance from quake: 10802 km / 6712 mi | Show on map | Station Info

Seismic station Tucson, Arizona: vertical movement plot around time of quake (source: IRIS/BUD)

Seismogram (vertical component) around time of quake. Thin dotted red line indicates time of quake. Seismic waves arrive some time later, depending on distance. Bandpass filter applied: 0.02-2.0 Hz. Source: IRIS Buffer of Uniform Data (BUD) webtool

User reports for this quake (2)

User reports estimate the perceived ground shaking intensity according to the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale.

Contribute:
Leave a comment if you find a particular report interesting or want to add to it.
Flag as inappropriate.
Mark as helpful or interesting.
Send your own user report!

Translate

Arawa (85.5 km ENE of epicenter) [Map] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 minutes

Gizo, Western Province (289.6 km SE of epicenter) [Map] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : Vibrating (reported through our app)

Aftershocks

[More info]

Recorded aftershocks, latest first (2 quakes)

Date and time	Mag Depth	Location	Details
May 11, 2022 22:24 46 weeks ago	5.1 10 km	Solomon Sea, 90 km SW of Arawa, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea	More
Feb 19, 2022 23:18 1 year 6 weeks ago	4.9 101 km	Solomon Sea, 78 km W of Arawa, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea	More

Earlier earthquakes in the same area

Click here to search our database for earlier earthquakes in the same area since 1900!

Try our free app!

Android | iOS version

Why is there advertising on this site?

Support us - Help us upgrade our services!

We truly love working to bring you the latest volcano and earthquake data from around the world. Maintaining our website and our free apps does require, however, considerable time and resources.
We need financing to increase hard- and software capacity as well as support our editor team. We're aiming to achieve uninterrupted service wherever an earthquake or volcano eruption unfolds, and your donations can make it happen! Every donation will be highly appreciated. If you find the information useful and would like to support our team in integrating further features, write great content, and in upgrading our soft- and hardware, please make a donation (PayPal or Online credit card payment).

Planned features:

Improved multilanguage support
Tsunami alerts
Faster responsiveness

Thanks to your past donations, these features have been added recently:

Design upgrade
Detailed quake stats
Additional seismic data sources

Download and Upgrade the Volcanoes & Earthquakes app to get one of the fastest seismic and volcano alerts online:
Android | IOS

Thank you!

Sources: VolcanoDiscovery / VolcanoAdventures and other sources as noted.
Use of material: Most text and images on our websites are owned by us. Re-use is generally not permitted without authorization. Contact us for licensing rights.

Volcanoes & Earthquakes