Strong mag. 5.5 earthquake - North Greenland Sea, 431 km southwest of Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, Svalbard, on Sunday, 1 March 1959 at 00:31 (GMT)

Strong mag. 5.5 earthquake - North Greenland Sea, 431 km southwest of Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, Svalbard, on Sunday, 1 March 1959 at 00:31 (GMT)

Strong magnitude 5.5 earthquake at 15 km depth

Date & time: 1 Mar 1959 00:31:24 UTC
Magnitude: 5.5
Depth: 15.0 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude: 74.727°N / 8.479°E (North Greenland Sea, Svalbard & Jan Mayen)
Nearby towns and cities:
400 km (248 mi) SSW of Barentsburg (pop: 576) --> See nearby quakes!
413 km (257 mi) SW of Sveagruva (pop: 300) --> See nearby quakes!
431 km (268 mi) SSW of Longyearbyen (pop: 2,060) --> See nearby quakes!
Primary data source: USGS (United States Geological Survey)
Estimated released energy: 1.1 x 1013 joules (3.12 gigawatt hours, equivalent to 2682 tons of TNT or 0.2 atomic bombs!) More info
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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.
MagnitudeDepthLocationSource
M 5.515 kmGreenland Sea (Svalbard & Jan Mayen)USGS
Note: for quakes of 2012 and earlier, our database often contains only records from USGS.

User reports for this quake

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Aftershocks

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Recorded aftershocks, latest first (0 quakes):
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Earlier earthquakes in the same area

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