Large Earthquakes

The magnitude of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake has been estimated at 7.9 (Moment Magnitude Scale). The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was the first natural disaster of its magnitude documented by photography and motion pictures.

San Francisco Earthquake aftermath on Market St.	April 18, 1906

Seismologists describe earthquake size in the Moment Magnitude Scale. The largest earthquakes recorded between 1900 and 2013 are:

	Location	Date UTC	Magnitude
1.	Chile	1960 05 22	9.5
2.	Prince William Sound, Alaska	1964 03/28	9.2
3.	Off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra	2004 12/26	9.1
4.	Near the East Coast of Honshu, Japan	2011 03/11	9.0
5.	Kamchatka	1952 11/04	9.0
6.	Offshore Maule, Chile	2010 02/27	8.8
7.	Off the Coast of Ecuador	1906 01/31	8.8
8.	Rat Islands, Alaska	1965 02/04	8.7
9.	Northern Sumatra, Indonesia	2005 03/28	8.6
10.	Assam - Tibet	1950 08/15	8.6
11.	Off the west coast of northern Sumatra	2012 04/11	8.6
12.	Andreanof Islands, Alaska	1957 03 09	8.6
13.	Southern Sumatra, Indonesia	2007 09/12	8.5
14.	Banda Sea, Indonesia	1938 02/01	8.5
15.	Kamchatka	1923 02/03	8.5
16.	Chile-Argentina Border	1922 11/11	8.5
17.	Kuril Islands	1963 10/13	8.5
Last Updated: 2012 April 11

Many large earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire:

Ring of Fire, from USGS

For tracking earthquakes around the world in near real-time, follow GrokEarth's @SeismicPing feed on Twitter. To track earthquakes within a 300 mile radius of San Francisco, follow GrokEarth' @SeismicPingSF feed on Twitter.

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”
― John Keats

REFERENCES

• Largest Earthquakes in the World Since 1900, USGS, updated yearly.
• Earthquake Magnitude, GrokEarth, May 19, 2012.
• Ring of Fire, GrokEarth, August 11, 2012.