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ALASKA QUAKEDID THE GROUND SHAKE NEAR YOU?

Interior Alaska · 64.84°N

Earthquakes near Fairbanks

Reading the latest USGS reports for the ground near Fairbanks…

Live sections load from the USGS feed. If the feed does not answer, this page says so — it never fills the gap with old numbers.

Recorded USGS earthquakes from the last 7 days, magnitude 2.5 and larger, within 250 km of Fairbanks. The dashed pale circle is a true 250 km radius around Fairbanks; amber rings are the recorded epicenters, sized by magnitude; small cream squares are the other towns, and the ringed cream marker is Fairbanks. If the USGS feed does not answer, the coastline, ring, and marker still show — and no events are plotted.

Most felt near Fairbanks — last 7 days, within 250 km

Recent near Fairbanks — last 7 days, M1.0 and larger within 250 km, newest first

Every event links to its USGS event page, the authority for that earthquake. Distances are measured from Fairbanks, not copied from the feed's place names.

The biggest on record near Fairbanks — USGS catalog, as recorded

The five largest earthquakes recorded within 200 km of Fairbanks since 1900, from USGS catalog pulls made November 8, 2026. Pre-instrumental magnitudes are estimates, and catalog completeness varies by era — the fine print is on the about page.

How often does the ground move here?

31 earthquakes of M4.0 or larger were recorded within 200 km in the last 10 years — a busy rate by Alaska standards. Since 1900 the catalog holds 320 M4-or-larger events within the same radius.

Fairbanks is Interior Alaska's seismic center of population: the Minto Flats and Fairbanks-area fault zones produce steady small-to-moderate shaking, and the city felt both the 2002 M7.9 Denali earthquake and the 1968 M7.0 Rampart event from its north.

Interior Alaska — why it shakes

The Interior shakes on its own terms. North of the Alaska Range, a set of long left-slipping faults — the Denali, Totschunda, and their neighbors — grind past each other as crust caught between the subducting Pacific Plate and the rotating Yakutat block squeezes northward. Interior earthquakes are mostly shallow crustal breaks, and the region's clusters near Fairbanks, Minto Flats, and the Tanana Valley can run for months after a larger event.

New to the numbers? What magnitude means explains the scale in plain words — including why a whole step is about 32 times the energy, and why what people feel is not the same as damage.

Fairbanks on the sister sites

Daylight in Fairbanks — sunrise, sunset, and day length.

Aurora over Fairbanks — tonight's northern lights outlook.

Goose Creek, Knik Arm, Cook Inlet — the nearest tide station in the fleet's inventory, 398 km from Fairbanks.