An official website of the United States government
Here's how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock () or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
On February 6, 2023, a M 7.8 earthquake occurred in southern Turkey near the northern border of Syria. This earthquake was followed about 9 hours later by a M 7.5 earthquake approximately 90 km to the north. This interactive geonarrative describes the tectonic setting in the region, past seismicity in the area, and details of the earthquake rupture.
The Australia-Pacific margin is an intensely active plate boundary that produces some of the world's most powerful earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Explore this interactive geonarrative (Esri storymap).
The Quaternary Fault and Fold Database of the United States database contains information on faults and associated folds in the United States that demonstrate geological evidence of coseismic surface deformation in large earthquakes during the past 1.6 million years (Myr).
A scenario represents one realization of a potential future earthquake by assuming a particular magnitude, location, and fault-rupture geometry and estimating shaking using a variety of strategies.
Subduction zones are home to the most seismically active faults on the planet. The shallow megathrust interface of subduction zones host our largest earthquakes, and are the only faults capable of M9+ ruptures.
Vs30, the time-averaged shear-wave velocity (Vs) in the upper 30 meters, is a key index adopted by the earthquake engineering community to account for seismic site conditions. USGS has compiled measured VS30 funded by the USGS and other governmental agencies for 4389 sites in the United States.