A magnitude 5.0 earthquake hit greater Los Angeles California at 8:39 PM tonight, Sunday, May 17, 2009. The quake was centered approximately 1 mile from Lennox, a mile from Inglewood, 2 miles from Hawthorne, and 4 miles from El Segundo. Here are some resources for people that want to view Los Angeles earthquake information.

Update: The US geological survey has re-identified data on this earthquake as magnitude 4.7 instead of the 5.0 that was reported moments after the seismic activity occurred. Clicking through on either of the USGS links below will provide the most accurate data regarding this quake, that was reported as centered in Lennox, California. The screenshot shown here was taken before data had been revised.

Details on the quake from US Geological Survey (USGS), Sunday LA Earthquake May 18, which includes date and time, longitude and latitude location, depth, distances from the epicenter, and other parameters. The site also has maps and other scientific and technical information.

Here's another usgs resource page with preliminary earthquake report data from USGS.gov. The report shows magnitude of 5.0, striking on Sunday, May 17 to 8:39:36 p.m. (PDT).

Not surprisingly, micro-blogging service Twitter erupted with earthquake related tweets as soon as the ground began shaking. I set a search hash tag for #earthquake, and by the time I had updated it there were more than 20,000 updates. Certainly makes it easy to get the latest information. It has me wondering how strong a quake it's going to take to get me to run outside of the house instead of posting earthquake updates to twitter. 5.0 wasn't strong enough to get me outside but I did step away from the PC, probably 5.5 or greater and I'm running out the door, or seeking out a more safe location.