Moderate mag. 5.3 earthquake - Coral Sea, Vanuatu, on Saturday, 21 December 1985 at 11:09 (GMT)

Moderate mag. 5.3 earthquake - Coral Sea, Vanuatu, on Saturday, 21 December 1985 at 11:09 (GMT)

Moderate magnitude 5.3 earthquake at 33 km depth

Date & time: 21 Dec 1985 11:09:52 UTC
Magnitude: 5.3
Depth: 33.0 km
Epicenter latitude / longitude: 14.16°S / 166.601°E (Coral Sea, Vanuatu)
Nearest volcano: Gaua (98 km / 61 mi)
Nearby towns and cities:
107 km (67 mi) WSW of Sola (pop: 1,170) --> See nearby quakes!
110 km (69 mi) NNW of Port-Olry (pop: 1,950) --> See nearby quakes!
163 km (101 mi) NNW of Luganville (pop: 13,400) --> See nearby quakes!
229 km (142 mi) NNW of Norsup (pop: 3,000) --> See nearby quakes!
392 km (244 mi) SSE of Lata (Santa Cruz Islands, Solomon Islands) (pop: 553) --> See nearby quakes!
438 km (272 mi) NNW of Port Vila (pop: 35,900) --> See nearby quakes!
Primary data source: USGS (United States Geological Survey)
Estimated released energy: 5.6 x 1012 joules (1.56 gigawatt hours, equivalent to 1344 tons of TNT) 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 5.333 kmVanuatuUSGS
Note: for quakes of 2012 and earlier, our database often contains only records from USGS.

User reports for this quake

User reports estimate the perceived ground shaking intensity according to the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale.
There are no user reports for this quake yet. If you felt it be the first to report it!
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Aftershocks

More info
Recorded aftershocks, latest first (7 quakes):
  • 28 Dec 1985 17:24 UTC
    | M 5.1 |
    33 km (20.5 mi) depth
    |
    23 km (15 mi) distance
    | USGS | Details
  • 25 Dec 1985 21:07 UTC
    | M 4.3 |
    33 km (20.5 mi) depth
    |
    21 km (13 mi) distance
    | USGS | Details
  • 24 Dec 1985 15:42 UTC
    | M 4.1 |
    33 km (20.5 mi) depth
    |
    15 km (9 mi) distance
    | USGS | Details
  • 22 Dec 1985 09:10 UTC
    | M 4.8 |
    33 km (20.5 mi) depth
    |
    14 km (9 mi) distance
    | USGS | Details
  • 21 Dec 1985 16:03 UTC
    | M 3.9 |
    33 km (20.5 mi) depth
    |
    24 km (15 mi) distance
    | USGS | Details
  • 21 Dec 1985 14:40 UTC
    | M 5.4 |
    33 km (20.5 mi) depth
    |
    26 km (16 mi) distance
    | USGS | Details
  • 21 Dec 1985 13:11 UTC
    | M 4.6 |
    33 km (20.5 mi) depth
    |
    22 km (13 mi) distance
    | USGS | Details

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Earlier earthquakes in the same area

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