March 2018

Earthquakes in the last 6 months

As in previous months, earthquake data with a magnitude greater than M4.5 on the Richter scale, for the previous month was downloaded.

Up-to-date earthquake data is available from the USGS site (United States Geological Survey)

The following table shows earthquakes with a magnitude greater than M4.5 –

From the January data, two visualizations/maps were created.
The FIRST From the January data, two visualizations/maps were created.

Zooming in to Papua New Guinea, as in the screenshot below, shows 91 M4.5+ earthquakes in the area. From the Time widget, we see that these 91 earthquakes occur in the 6 days, Feb 25 – Mar 2.

The SECOND map is also an interactive map, but this time animated, again showing earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 4.5 on the Richter scale.
The timeline at the bottom of this map is animated showing the earthquakes in a time sequence as they happened. This timeline can be paused, and then the time cursor can be moved manually to really see where the days earthquakes occurred.

Zooming in to Papua New Guinea as is in the screenshot below, it is interesting to see the animated earthquake activity over time. In the Papua New Guinea earthquake area, there were 32 M4.5+ earthquakes on Feb 27. It is intriguing to watch when zoomed in, especially when pausing the animation and moving the slider manually.