Regional Map Focus
Open the earthquake layer near Alaska; the feed is not limited to a local boundary.
Catalog Fields
Magnitude, depth and location may appear when a source reports them.
Revisions
Public event estimates can change as agencies review additional data.
Coverage
Monitoring and reporting thresholds differ by place; gaps are possible.
Alaska's earthquakes reflect subduction, strike-slip motion and mainland fault systems. Aleutian, Southcentral, Interior and Southeast records need their own regional context.
Different parts of Alaska have different earthquake settings
The Alaska Earthquake Center's explanation of Alaska seismicity distinguishes subduction, sideways plate motion and faulting within the mainland. The Aleutian and Southcentral settings should not be treated as the explanation for every Interior or Southeast event. A wide statewide map can place these different environments on one screen without making them one fault system. Use the regional explanation associated with the source record instead of assigning a mechanism from the marker's colour alone.
Depth is especially useful context when comparing records from the Alaska-Aleutian subduction region with shallow crustal earthquakes elsewhere in the state. It is still only one field: two events of similar magnitude can occur at different depths and distances from communities. Neither value alone tells you the shaking or damage at a specific place. An educational tectonic overview is not a prediction that a particular fault will produce an earthquake today.
Read the Alaska record before comparing map counts
The Alaska Earthquake Center recent-event list links individual event pages. Keep the earthquake identifier and source alongside a saved magnitude or depth. The centre's reviewed Anchorage event record illustrates fields such as local and UTC origin times, depth, magnitude type, review status and a link to the combined ANSS catalogue. This linked record is a historical reading example, not a report of a new event or a current alert.
Check the time label, not just the date. An AKDT-labelled time and its UTC equivalent refer to the same instant even when their calendar dates differ. Do not assume that every interface uses the same local zone or daylight-saving convention; preserve the zone actually displayed. Also distinguish the origin time from the time you retrieved the website. Those two timestamps answer different questions, especially when a catalogue is retained during an interruption.
Shaking intensity is a separate regional product
The centre's ShakeMap explanation describes how recorded and predicted ground motions help represent shaking across an area. Its colours are intensity information, not a second magnitude scale for the same earthquake. Check whether the selected product describes an actual event or a hypothetical scenario. A scenario image must not be captioned as a measured impact from the latest marker on the globe.
For comparisons between Anchorage, a coastal community and an Interior location, use the same event and product version before interpreting a difference in shaking. The US ShakeMap reading guide helps separate intensity products, felt reports and impact estimates. Neither a missing felt report nor a distant epicentre, by itself, proves that nobody experienced shaking. Keep missing observations distinct from a source product explicitly reporting a value.
Earthquake records and tsunami bulletins are not the same feed
A coastal or offshore earthquake marker is not a tsunami warning. Use the responsible warning authority's bulletin for its named areas, issue time and current status; do not convert a magnitude threshold into a warning label. Our US tsunami bulletin guide explains how to read that separate product. A historical earthquake or scenario on a map should never be presented as a new coastal alert.
PocketWorld's button focuses the earthquake layer near Alaska; it is not a complete local catalogue, a boundary-filtered state search or direct access to every Alaska Earthquake Center record. Available public observations may extend beyond the focus, and provider timestamps matter more than the globe's appearance. This page is not an alert or safety service. Keep the source link, origin time, review status and retained-data limitations when sharing an observation, and use responsible authorities for current warnings and decisions.
Hazard data sources
Events are aggregated from USGS, EMSC, GeoNet (New Zealand), NOAA, NASA EONET, NASA FIRMS and GDACS, then normalized and deduplicated.
Frequently asked questions
Does this page show every earthquake in Alaska?
No. The map focuses near Alaska, but public catalogues have uneven coverage and can include events beyond the region.
When is the earthquake data updated?
There is no fixed interval. Check provider timestamps; a retained snapshot may be used during an upstream outage.
Can magnitude alone show local impact?
No. Distance, depth, ground and buildings affect shaking and damage. Use official event assessments and local guidance.