USGS Detects Massive 7.5-Magnitude Earthquake in South Atlantic, Says No Tsunami Danger to Islands

According to USGS data, the earthquake occurred deep in the Earth’s crust, at a depth of 63 kilometers. Its location was about 100 kilometers northeast of Montagu Island, part of the South Sandwich Islands, or 2,150 kilometers southeast of Stanley in the Falkland Islands. St. Helena is of about equal distance. The islands are a British dependency.

​As the location was especially remote, with the closest spots of land being desolate volcanic islands, some of which are active, no one has reported having felt the earthquake on the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre’s website as of yet.

Another smaller earthquake of magnitude 5.9 was reported about 15 minutes later at a depth of 47.3 kilometers inside the Earth and about 50 kilometers north of the first quake. A few minutes after that, a third quake, also of magnitude 5.9, was also reported; however, it was much shallower, at just 18.9 kilometers deep.

A fourth quake was reported soon after the third, but several hundred kilometers to the south, near the Southern Thule Islands, which are also uninhabited. The quake was magnitude 5.7 in strength and occurred at a depth of 48 kilometers into the Earth.