Earthquakes by Depth
Class↕ | Depth Range (km)↕ | Tectonic Setting↕ | Famous Example↕ | Surface Impact↕ | Known For↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Very shallow crustal | 0-10 | Active crustal faults, volcanic | 2011 Christchurch (5 km), New Zealand | Extreme local shaking | Minimal attenuation, produce the strongest localized damage per magnitude |
Shallow | 10-35 | Continental crust, strike-slip | 1906 San Francisco (~12 km) | Severe widespread shaking | Most destructive class, include 75%+ of all recorded earthquakes |
Shallow subduction | 0-40 | Megathrust interface | 2011 Tohoku, Japan (~30 km) | Tsunami generation, long duration | The planet's biggest earthquakes (M9+) and tsunami makers |
Intermediate | 70-300 | Subducting slab, Wadati-Benioff zone | 2017 Puebla, Mexico (~51 km) | Wider felt area, less surface rupture | Shake larger regions but with weaker peak intensity than shallow events |
Intermediate-deep slab | 150-300 | Down-dip slab | 1939 Chillan, Chile (~80 km) | Felt across entire country | Driven by dehydration embrittlement of subducting plate |
Deep focus | 300-700 | Deep subducting slab | 1994 Bolivia (637 km, M8.2) | Weak shaking but enormous magnitude | Should not be possible by brittle failure, may involve mineral phase changes in olivine |
Very deep | 600-700 | Lower mantle transition zone | 2013 Sea of Okhotsk (609 km, M8.3) | Felt over enormous area, minimal damage | Deepest large earthquakes ever recorded, defy classical friction models |
Induced shallow | 0-5 | Human-induced (fracking, reservoir) | 2011 Prague, Oklahoma | Local damage, anomalous frequency | Triggered by wastewater injection, reshaped Oklahoma seismicity |
Volcanic shallow | 0-10 | Magma movement | Kilauea swarm events | Swarms, low magnitudes | Indicators of magma migration, used to forecast eruptions |
Mid-ocean ridge | 0-15 | Divergent boundary, oceanic crust | Mid-Atlantic Ridge events | Rarely damaging due to remote location | Normal faulting from seafloor spreading, mostly small magnitudes |
Outer rise | 10-40 | Oceanic plate bending before trench | 1933 Sanriku (outer rise) | Can trigger tsunamis despite remote origin | Tension in bending plate, can produce huge tsunami earthquakes |
Intra-slab normal | 40-100 | Inside subducting slab | 2001 Nisqually, Washington (52 km) | Wide felt area, moderate damage | Tensional faulting within downgoing slab |
Continental deep crust | 15-35 | Lower continental crust | Central India stable craton events | Rare but intense local shaking | Happen in stable interiors, still not fully understood |
Hypocentral cluster | Various | Aftershock zone | 2019 Ridgecrest sequence | Sustained aftershock sequences | Clusters spanning depths, reveal rupture geometry |
Ultra-deep (theoretical max) | ~700 | Base of mantle transition zone | Fiji-Tonga region events | Negligible surface effect | Represent the deepest possible earthquakes, beyond which the mantle flows ductilely |
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