M5.0 Earthquake near Point Hope, United States — 12 March 2025, 17:29 UTC

Moderate earthquakes can damage poorly built or unreinforced structures near the epicentre, while well-engineered buildings typically escape serious harm. Shaking is often strong enough to wake sleeping residents over a wide area.

A magnitude 5.0 earthquake radiates roughly 477 tons of TNT equivalent in seismic energy.

The USGS assigns this earthquake a significance score of 385, which is below the USGS threshold of more than 600 for its significant-earthquake list. The ranking combines magnitude with available Did You Feel It responses and PAGER alert level; it is not a direct measurement of damage.

That is about 06:17 local solar time at the epicentre, around dawn.

This event was deeper than 92% of the 155,436 earthquakes recorded in the United States in our catalogue and stronger than 100% of them.

The epicentre was located at 68.2130, -168.0590 — 56 km west-southwest of Point Hope. The closest other recorded event was a magnitude 2.6 earthquake 62 km southeast of here on 13 March 2025.

At 38 km this was a shallow earthquake. Shallow events release their energy close to the surface, so for a given magnitude they produce noticeably stronger shaking — and more damage — than deeper ones. Roughly three quarters of all earthquakes worldwide occur at shallow depths.

This catalogue does not ingest eyewitness responses, so it cannot confirm where this earthquake was felt. Based on magnitude alone, an event this size can be felt widely and may cause minor local damage. Its shallow focus makes stronger surface shaking more likely than for a deeper event of the same magnitude.

The USGS event record links to NOAA tsunami information because this was a large event in an oceanic region. That link flag does not mean a tsunami occurred or that a warning is active. Check tsunami.gov and instructions from your local authority for the current status of your coastline.

1 further earthquakes have been recorded within about 150 km of the epicentre in the seven days after this event, the largest of them magnitude 2.6.

0 earthquakes of magnitude 4 or above have been logged within roughly 200 km of this epicentre in our catalogue. The strongest was a magnitude 3.8 event near Point Hope on 25 January 2026. This M5.0 event released about 63 times more energy than that event.

No other earthquakes have been recorded within 100 km of this epicentre in the past year, which makes this a genuinely isolated event.

This earthquake is part of the March 2025 worldwide record, and of earthquakes in the United States during March 2025. Browse the full monthly archive to compare periods.