Light quake way offshore felt along the beaches

A magnitude 4.0 quake, which the USGS classifies as a "light earthquake," broke at 10:14 p.m. way out in the bight, 27 miles off Point Dume and 14 miles north of Santa Barbara Island. Twitter has a way of magnifying these things — not the quake, just the human and news media reactions onshore — so you may hear about it even if you didn't feel it. For some reason the media in LA seem to report any quake stronger than a gust of wind these days. I guess it's the affliction of easily available, if not every important, data.

This quake was apparently unusually shallow, 0.1 km below the surface if the readings are correct, which may explain why it was felt widely.