Soquel, Santa Cruz County · about six miles from the Loma Prieta epicenter
Is there an earthquake right now near Santa Cruz?
Felt something? The trace below is the ground in Soquel, live, refreshed every five minutes.
How to read it in ten seconds. Each horizontal line is one hour; the newest is at the bottom. Ordinary traffic and footsteps make a thin fuzz. An earthquake makes a sudden dark burst that fades over minutes — a local one arrives sharp and fast, a distant one rolls in slow and long. If you felt it and the newest line shows a burst, the ground moved here too.
| Mag | When | Where | From station |
|---|
The panel above is the USGS catalog, not this station's detections: it says an earthquake occurred. The helicorder says the ground moved here. The two usually agree within minutes for anything you could feel in Santa Cruz County.
Nearby earthquakes this station has recorded
Every earthquake within 300 km that the Soquel station recorded and the USGS confirmed, 2026 to date — 31 events. The closest was a M4.6 near Boulder Creek, CA, 20 km away; the strongest a M5.6 near Redwood Valley, CA. Each has its own page with the station's arrival and the USGS record.
Distant earthquakes the station also caught — Mexico, Japan, Venezuela — are in the full catalog, with the CSV download. The instrument, its history and how it works: the seismic station.
Earthquakes by town
The USGS record for 50 km around each town, with the quakes this station recorded marked, and the live trace.
Santa Cruz · Soquel · Capitola · Aptos · Scotts Valley · Felton · Ben Lomond · Boulder Creek · Watsonville · Hollister · San Juan Bautista · Gilroy · Morgan Hill · Los Gatos · Saratoga · San Jose · Santa Clara · Cupertino · Palo Alto · Half Moon Bay · Salinas · Monterey · Carmel-by-the-Sea · Big Sur