A strong 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck Monday near the South Sandwich Islands, a remote British territory near Antarctica and South America's southern tip, the US Geological Survey said.

The earthquake, which was 10 kilometers (six miles) deep, took place 283 kilometers (176 miles) southeast of Bristol Island and 2,374 kilometers (1,476 miles) southeast of Punta Arenas, Chile, the USGS said.

The quake occurred at 0617 GMT, USGS said.

"There is a small possibility of a local or regional tsunami that could affect coasts located usually no more than a few hundred kilometers from the earthquake epicenter," said a statement by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

The IOC statement applied to countries "within and bordering the Caribbean Sea, except for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands."

US geologists use the moment magnitude scale, which measures the area of the fault that ruptured and the total energy released.