Cuba and South Florida rattled by 6.1 earthquake
‘Odd’ Gulf of Mexico earthquake rattles Florida and Cuba This earthquake may be among the biggest in the Gulf of Mexico’s history By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, with "re
This earthquake may be among the biggest in the Gulf of Mexico’s history
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, with "reports of shaking across Southwestern Florida," according to a social media post from the National Weather Service’s (NWS’s) Miami office.
The quake occurred 104 kilometers (about 65 miles) northwest of Mantua, Cuba, says Robert Garcia, a warning coordination meteorologist at the NWS Miami office. It occurred at about 2 P.M. EDT and at a depth of 26 kilometers (around 16 miles) below the surface. “We have not heard any reports of damage in South Florida,” Garcia says. There is no threat of a tsunami from the earthquake at this time.
Jeff Berardelli, chief meteorologist at an NBC affiliate station in Tampa, Fla., posted on Bluesky that the earthquake was among the biggest in the Gulf of Mexico’s history. A 1959 earthquake of around magnitude 6.4 that struck near Veracruz, Mexico, is likely the “strongest known” earthquake ever recorded in the Gulf, Berardelli wrote.
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This earthquake is “odd” because it occurred in the interior of a tectonic plate, not along the edge—which is rare but not unheard of, says Wendy Bohon, an independent earthquake geologist. “This quake is in a somewhat unusual spot, and it’s pretty large,” she says, adding that no earthquakes beyond magnitude 5.0 have been recorded within 250 kilometers of this quake.
Much like the “Ring of Fire” in the Pacific, the Caribbean has its own smaller “ring” of earthquake activity, adds Susan Hough, a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. That boundary generated the 2010 earthquake in Haiti , for example. But Monday’s earthquake happened away from that boundary, Hough says, something that may warrant further investigation from scientists.
The quake struck on the same day as a separate magnitude 7.8 earthquake off the coast of the Philippines . The latter temblor occurred in a subduction zone; such regions are capable of producing the strongest earthquakes possible.
