ABOUT

About Alaska Quake

Alaska Quake answers one question — did the ground shake near me? — for 34 Alaska towns, in plain words and Alaska time. It is part of a small family of Alaska data sites built on free public datasets.

Reports, never predictions

This site reports earthquakes that have already happened. It does not predict earthquakes, and it is not an alert or warning service. In the words of the U.S. Geological Survey: "Neither the USGS nor any other scientists have ever predicted a major earthquake. We do not know how, and we do not expect to know how any time in the foreseeable future." Long-run counts and rates shown here are labeled as exactly that — what the catalog recorded over a stated period — never as a statement about what will happen next. When USGS's own impact assessment system (PAGER) rates an event, this site quotes it as USGS's assessment and links to it; it never restyles it as a warning of our own. For tsunami warnings, use tsunami.gov and official local emergency alerts.

Where the data comes from

All earthquake data is from the U.S. Geological Survey — the ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat) and USGS real-time feeds. In Alaska, much of the underlying data originates with the Alaska Earthquake Center (University of Alaska Fairbanks) and other contributing networks; credit on this site reads "USGS (data: Alaska Earthquake Center and contributing networks)." USGS data is a U.S. Government work in the public domain; no USGS logo is used and no endorsement is implied. Counts quoted here are USGS-catalog counts; the Alaska Earthquake Center's own network detects more, smaller events than the public catalog lists, so the two sources' totals legitimately differ.

How the pages work

The live sections — verdicts, recent lists, felt boards, and the statewide map — read USGS summary feeds directly in your browser when the page loads, and stamp what they show with the feed's time in Alaska Time. If a feed does not answer, the page says so plainly and shows no live numbers at all; it never presents old numbers as current. The history sections — each town's biggest recorded earthquakes and its 10-year rate — were compiled from the catalog on November 8, 2026 by a separate catalog pull per town (the largest M4-or-larger events within 200 km, and the count of M4-or-larger events within 200 km in the ten years before that date). Historical magnitudes from before the instrument era are estimates, and catalog completeness varies by era and by how many instruments were listening — sparse regions like the North Slope have thinner records for that reason. Pre-1900 coverage is not systematic and is not presented as such.

The map

The statewide plot draws the last 7 days of M2.5-or-larger Alaska earthquakes over a public-domain Natural Earth coastline — a picture of the week's recorded earthquakes, labeled with its window. It is not a live tracking map, and the coastline is a simplified sketch, not a chart.