Los Angeles, California Tuesday, July 21, 2026 Vol. 1 · Day 46

LA CIVICS.

a daily pulse of Los Angeles — written by machines, read by neighbors

311 TODAY 51QUAKES 24H 15 (M2.0)READERS 1
Earthquakes · USGS open data · refreshed daily

The ground under Southern California

Southern California shakes constantly — about 56 recorded earthquakes a day in the latest week of data, nearly all of them far too small to feel. This page follows the region's seismic hum from the U.S. Geological Survey's public feed: the daily rate, the recent quakes big enough to notice, and how Los Angeles fits into a picture that is mostly not under LA.

Just felt something? Our mirror refreshes once each morning, so it is not a real-time tracker — for confirmation in the minutes after a quake, use the USGS Latest Earthquakes map directly.

32
quakes in the latest 24h of data (max M2.2)
392
in the latest 7 days
M4.3
biggest of those 7 days
2,165
on record since Jun 5, 2026

Data through Jul 20, 2026. Windows are measured against the newest event we hold, not the clock — the mirror ingests the USGS daily feed once a day, so late-day quakes appear the next morning.

Notable quakes — M2.5 and up, last 30 days

Roughly the size where a quake starts being felt near its epicenter, depending on depth and distance. Locations are USGS's own place names — most of these are tens of miles or more from Los Angeles.

When (Pacific)MagnitudeWhereDepthFelt reports
Jul 16, 5:58 PM M2.5 6 km NE of Cabazon, CA 18 km
Jul 16, 12:45 PM M2.6 17 km WNW of Progreso, B.C., MX 5 km
Jul 16, 8:36 AM M3.0 16 km WNW of Progreso, B.C., MX 7 km 2
Jul 15, 1:48 AM M2.9 9 km SE of Ocotillo Wells, CA 9 km 1
Jul 13, 11:29 AM M2.6 18 km WSW of Johannesburg, CA 8 km 2
Jul 13, 9:40 AM M4.3 18 km WSW of Johannesburg, CA 8 km 1,078
Jul 12, 10:53 AM M2.9 2 km SSE of Frazier Park, CA 12 km 22
Jul 12, 3:38 AM M4.4 2 km ESE of Frazier Park, CA 13 km 6
Jul 9, 7:26 AM M2.5 9 km NW of Calipatria, CA 3 km
Jul 6, 5:48 AM M3.2 13 km NNE of Avalon, CA 9 km 15
Jul 5, 9:24 AM M2.8 18 km WSW of Westmorland, CA 9 km
Jul 4, 11:36 PM M2.7 18 km WSW of Johannesburg, CA 7 km
Jul 3, 10:42 PM M2.5 8 km ENE of Borrego Springs, CA 8 km
Jul 1, 11:17 PM M3.3 12 km N of Ocotillo Wells, CA 10 km 15
Jul 1, 8:29 PM M3.0 17 km WSW of Johannesburg, CA 5 km 2
Jun 26, 9:36 AM M2.8 19 km NNE of Indio, CA 6 km 9
Jun 23, 10:32 PM M2.7 18 km WSW of Johannesburg, CA 9 km 1
Jun 22, 10:25 AM M2.7 31 km NE of Fort Irwin, CA 3 km
Jun 21, 10:49 PM M3.6 21 km N of Searles Valley, CA 2 km 6
Jun 21, 7:57 PM M2.7 18 km WSW of Johannesburg, CA 8 km

"Felt reports" are USGS Did You Feel It? submissions as counted while the event was in the daily feed we mirror; totals keep growing on USGS's site afterward, so these are floors. Each location links to the USGS event page.

Almost all of it is a hum you never feel

94% of the 2,165 quakes on record here are below magnitude 2.0 — under the rough line where anyone notices, and detectable only by instruments. The biggest event we've recorded is a M4.4 2 km ESE of Frazier Park, CA on July 12, which drew 6 felt reports. For the full picture of the region's background rate and what it takes for a quake to be felt, read our finding: the Southern California earthquake hum.

The latest recorded quakes

When (Pacific)MagnitudeWhereDepth
Jul 20, 3:27 AM M0.5 4 km WSW of Anza, CA 6 km
Jul 20, 2:28 AM M1.6 17 km WSW of Johannesburg, CA 8 km
Jul 20, 2:17 AM M0.2 4 km WSW of Anza, CA 6 km
Jul 20, 1:46 AM M0.4 16 km ESE of Anza, CA 14 km
Jul 20, 12:54 AM M1.4 5 km N of Cabazon, CA 14 km
Jul 20, 12:54 AM M1.1 6 km N of Cabazon, CA 15 km
Jul 20, 12:52 AM M0.3 16 km E of Little Lake, CA 4 km
Jul 20, 12:46 AM M0.4 12 km N of Borrego Springs, CA 11 km
Jul 20, 12:30 AM M0.9 7 km ESE of Valle Vista, CA 16 km
Jul 20, 12:05 AM M1.5 11 km N of Borrego Springs, CA 12 km
Jul 19, 11:50 PM M2.0 14 km SSE of Anza, CA 10 km
Jul 19, 11:07 PM M1.1 5 km WSW of Anza, CA 5 km

The daily brief covers this, every morning

Earthquakes, 311 requests, and building permits — what moved in LA overnight, distilled into one free email each morning. No spam, one-click unsubscribe.

Prefer to browse? See the live dashboard or your neighborhood's page.

Findings from our data

All findings →

Where this data comes from

Mirrored daily from the USGS real-time earthquake feed (earthquake.usgs.gov), filtered to a Southern California box spanning roughly the Central Coast to the Colorado River, and the Mexican border to the southern Sierra (32.5–36.0°N, 114–121°W). Los Angeles sits inside that zone, but most of these quakes are not under LA — place names are USGS's own. Magnitudes and depths are as USGS reports them and can be revised after review; our copy of an event freezes once it leaves the daily feed, so figures here can lag USGS's final values. Records begin June 5, 2026, when this project started ingesting the feed.