Earthquake now: a magnitude-6.0 earthquake struck beneath the west side of the Island of Hawaii on May 22, southeast of Captain Cook, and residents across the State of Hawaii felt it. The quake started 14 miles below the ocean surface, making it one of the deepest and most widely felt events in the recent sequence.
USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory says the May 22 quake was followed by a magnitude-4.6 event on June 2 northwest of Keauhou at 21 miles deep, and a magnitude-4.7 quake on June 9 east of Pepeʻekeo at 24 miles deep. Deep earthquakes have been recorded since 1912, when the observatory began monitoring Hawaii's volcanoes.
Hawaii Island depth and load
The three deep earthquakes were caused by the weight of the Hawaiian Island Chain on the brittle oceanic crust and upper mantle below. The chain has grown over millions of years, and its mass bends the rock beneath Hawaii Island. Those quakes are different from the day-to-day activity that occurs within volcanic systems on Most of Hawaii.
That distinction matters for readers on Hawaii Island. A deep quake can be felt far from its source because it pushes through a broad section of the island chain rather than staying tied to a single volcanic system.
June 16 and the Pahala swarm
The June 16 magnitude-4.6 earthquake south of the Island of Hawaii, 11 miles deep, fits the sequence in one way and diverges in another. It was deep, but it was part of the Pahala seismic swarm, not one of the flexure earthquakes that included The May 22, June 2, and June 9 events.
USGS describes Hawaii as sitting in the middle of the Pacific plate, far from plate-boundary interactions that drive most seismicity in California, Alaska, Russia, Japan, Indonesia and the Southwest Pacific. Volcanism in Hawaii comes from a mantle plume, a column of hot rock rising from near the core-mantle boundary while the Pacific plate creeps northwest over a stationary hot spot.
What Hawaii residents felt
The practical takeaway for Hawaii residents is that deep earthquakes can be statewide events even when they occur well below the surface. The May 22 quake was the largest in the series, and the June 2 and June 9 events show how the same loading process can produce repeated shaking at different points along Hawaii Island.
The open question is how strong the shaking was across the State of Hawaii and how many people reported feeling it. The sequence shows that Hawaii Island can still deliver deep, widely felt earthquakes without a plate-boundary trigger, and the May 22 event remains the clearest example in this stretch.
