A strong earthquake struck early Friday in the Pacific Ocean about 88 miles from the coast, west-southwest of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The quake was reported at 2:36 a.m. with a magnitude of 6.3 at depth of 6.8 miles. No damage was reported but residents of some coastal communities in California said they felt shaking.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake occurred as a result of “shallow normal faulting within the oceanic lithosphere of the Pacific plate.” It was 250 to 280 miles west-southwest of the boundary between the Pacific and North America plates – i.e., the San Andreas fault – and was not associated with that fault system.
At the location of Friday’s quake, the Pacific plate moves northwest against the North America plate at a rate of about 2-1/8 inches per year.
It had been more than 40 years since a quake measuring more than 6 had hit within 150 miles of this location.