Earthquakes in Antarctica, 2017–2026

3 earthquakes here in these years are on NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes. NOAA records no deaths for any of them. 2020 had the most magnitude 4.5+ earthquakes: 104 of the 297. NOAA lists 4 tsunamis that began in or off Antarctica. The highest water NOAA records here was 1 m, in February 2025.

• March 20, 2026Earthquake · M 6.5South Shetland IslandsUSGS
• October 10, 2025Earthquake · M 7.6Drake PassageUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• August 22, 2025Earthquake · M 7.52025 Southern Drake Passage EarthquakeUSGS · NOAA NCEI
• February 2025Tsunami · 1 m hereDalk GlacierNOAA NCEI
• February 21, 2022Earthquake · M 6.3Balleny Islands regionUSGS
• January 23, 2021Earthquake · M 6.9South Shetland IslandsUSGS · NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Antarctica when it began inside its borders, or at sea within 100 km of its coast (so one can count for two neighbours), or further out, up to 300 km, where Antarctica is the nearest country.
• USGS counts are its ComCat catalogue’s earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more, aftershocks included.
• 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.
• The map frames the box around Antarctica, its neighbours’ quakes included, so its count runs higher than this page’s.
• 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