Earthquake Monitoring

Earthquakes are happening around the world all the time, we just can’t feel all of them. The US Geological Survey (USGS) is constantly monitoring the Earth with sensitive instruments and for some time now has offered ways of sharing their data on the web through their Earthquake Hazards Program. In addition to RSS feeds, they introduced Google Earth KML network links which allow you to continuously monitor the status of earthquakes around the world. You can zoom in and look at the areas in the detailed satellite or aerial photos of GE. But, since most of the photos in GE are one or more years old, you won’t see evidence of that recent quake.
You have two main options off the USGS Earthquake Hazards page, plus a third option I found for just bigger quakes:

• Magnitude 1+ earthquakes, colored by age
• Magnitude 1+ earthquakes, colored by depth
• Magnitude 2.5+ during past 7 days

This is real-time data which can help you determine whether that shaking you felt really was a quake. One Google Earth Community member wrote how he experienced the earthquake data first-hand.

About Frank Taylor

Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.

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