The shaking Tuesday afternoon amounted to a 4.6 magnitude quake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The quake struck around 4:20 p.m. and was located on land around 7 miles west southwest of Ferndale.
Local earthquake expert Lori Dengler, a professor emeritus for Cal Poly Humboldt, said the quake was on land.
“You couldn’t walk a mile anywhere in Southern Humboldt without encountering a fault,” Dengler said Tuesday afternoon. “I mean, it’s shattered Earth is the best way to sort of think of it.”
She said it was probably an aftershock of the Dec. 20, 2022, quake.
“The preliminary depth is about 10 miles beneath the surface and I probably lump it into the aftershock sequence of the Dec. 20 earthquake,” Dengler told the Times-Standard. “It’s certainly in that zone and even though things have quieted down, we’re still getting a few so I would chalk it up at this point as being a Ferndale earthquake aftershock.”She added there was no threat of a tsunami as a result of the earthquake.
Just before 5 p.m., nearly 100 people reported feeling the quake. It was most felt in Eureka and Arcata, according to USGS.
