Southcentral Alaska · 60.55°N
Earthquakes near Kenai
Reading the latest USGS reports for the ground near Kenai…
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.
Most felt near Kenai — last 7 days, within 250 km
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Recent near Kenai — last 7 days, M1.0 and larger within 250 km, newest first
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Every event links to its USGS event page, the authority for that earthquake. Distances are measured from Kenai, not copied from the feed's place names.
The biggest on record near Kenai — USGS catalog, as recorded
- M7.1Major1 km SE of Point MacKenzie, Alaska
70 mifrom town - M7.1Major47 km ESE of Pedro Bay, Alaska
96 mifrom town - M6.9Strong27 km SE of Skwentna, Alaska
87 mifrom town - M6.8StrongSouthern Alaska
38 mifrom town - M6.8Strong4 km NE of Beluga, Alaska
43 mifrom town
The five largest earthquakes recorded within 200 km of Kenai 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?
237 earthquakes of M4.0 or larger were recorded within 200 km in the last 10 years — one of the most active rates. Since 1900 the catalog holds 1241 M4-or-larger events within the same radius.
Kenai's ground moves with Cook Inlet: the megathrust below the inlet, the deep slab, and the Border Ranges fault system along the inlet's east side all contribute, and the inlet's soft mudflats are known to amplify long shaking.
Southcentral Alaska — why it shakes
Southcentral Alaska sits above the place where the Pacific Plate slides beneath North America — the Aleutian megathrust. That collision built the Alaska Range and produced the two largest earthquakes in recorded U.S. history. Most of the region's shaking comes in three flavors: megathrust earthquakes offshore in the Gulf of Alaska and Prince William Sound, earthquakes inside the sinking Pacific slab 30 to 150 km down (the kind felt as a long roll across the whole region), and shallow breaks on crustal faults like the Castle Mountain fault in the Matanuska Valley.
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.
Kenai on the sister sites
Daylight in Kenai — sunrise, sunset, and day length.
Aurora over Kenai — tonight's northern lights outlook.
Kenai City Pier — the nearest tide station in the fleet's inventory, 2 km from Kenai.