The temblor struck 8.6 miles from the Mojave Desert's Searles Valley at about 4:22 p.m.
It was not immediately clear if any injuries or damage were reported.
This July, Ridgecrest was hit by a pair of major earthquakes, magnitudes 6.4 and 7.1 followed by thousands of smaller aftershocks.
It has continued to experience small quakes around magnitude 3.0 and higher on a regular basis since then.
The largest of those July quakes was felt throughout California and Nevada and produced significant damage to buildings and utilities in the immediate area.
A previous version of this story showed the wrong location in the map image, which has since been removed.