Earthquakes near Thousand Oaks through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 6.4 on March 11, 1933 (The 1933 Long Beach, California Earthquake), for which NOAA records 120 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 20 here, back to 1806. NOAA records deaths in 10 of the events here, 149 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.1 on March 29, 2014 (La Habra, Brea, Fullerton). NOAA’s record here begins on March 25, 1806 with an earthquake (Santa Barbara). It grows thinner going back: 15 of the 20 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on. NOAA lists 8 tsunamis that began within 60 mi of Thousand Oaks, and 10 from elsewhere that reached it with deaths or a metre of water or more. The highest water NOAA records here was 4.5 m, on December 11, 1913. The deadliest, on August 31, 1930, killed one person here by NOAA’s runup records.

• March 29, 2014Earthquake · M 5.1La Habra, Brea, FullertonNOAA NCEI
• July 21, 1952Earthquake · M 7.5The 1952 Kern County, California Earthquake · 12 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• March 11, 1933Earthquake · M 6.4The 1933 Long Beach, California Earthquake · 120 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• August 31, 1930Tsunami · 3.05 m hereS. California · one death here (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• December 11, 1913Tsunami · 4.5 m hereSanta Barbara, S. CaliforniaNOAA NCEI
• December 21, 1812Earthquake · M 7.5 (est.)Purisima · one death (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• March 25, 1806EarthquakeSanta BarbaraNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Thousand Oaks when it began within 60 mi of its centre, or 120 mi for an earthquake of magnitude 7 or more. Damage can reach further.
• USGS counts here start at magnitude 6: the catalogue’s smaller quakes thin out going back, where few instruments listened.
• NOAA lists significant events only: earthquakes that killed, did about $1 million of damage, reached magnitude 7.5 or intensity X, or raised a tsunami, and eruptions and tsunamis by like measures. Magnitudes before 1900 are its estimates from written accounts.
• Deaths are NOAA’s total for each event, wherever people died, its tsunami and fires included. A tsunami counts the dead its runup records give for this place: NOAA’s total for a tsunami includes its source quake’s.
• A tsunami from elsewhere counts where one of its runups killed or rose a metre or more.
• Counted to October 19, 2026, as is the map. The last 30 days ask USGS again.

How the layers work, where their data comes from and what they can’t tell you: Earthquakes, live, The world through history