Earthquakes near Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City sits on the eastern edge of the Basin and Range, right against the Wasatch Fault — a ~350 km system of normal faults running along the base of the Wasatch Range. The Salt Lake City segment passes directly beneath the metro's eastern benches.

Most days bring only tiny, unfelt tremors. But the Wasatch Fault is capable of a magnitude 7+ earthquake, and geologists estimate large ruptures on the Salt Lake City segment roughly every 1,300 years on average. The M5.7 Magna earthquake of March 2020 was the strongest to hit the valley in decades.

Depth matters as much as magnitude here: Wasatch Front quakes are typically shallow (often <12 km), so even moderate events are widely felt across the valley's soft lake-bed sediments, which amplify shaking.