Science Explorer

Earthquakes The Bay Area may is a seismically active region. On average, there are 20 or more earthquakes every day in the greater Bay Area. Hundreds of sensitive seismic instruments record these earthquakes, many of which are too small or too deep to be felt. Understanding the frequency and location of past earthquakes—both large and small—is...

Repeating Earthquakes Figure 1. East-west and north-south components of ground motion for the 1922 and 1934 Parkfield events recorded at Berkeley, California. Do earthquakes occur completely randomly, or do they have a pattern that tends to repeat? If they're random, there's no hope for earthquake prediction. But as we saw in the earthquake...

Induced Earthquakes Bryant Platt digs a hole to install seismometers at a home in southern Kansas. Seismometers are in the foreground. Observational Studies In response to sudden changes in seismicity that are potentially induced by human activity, the USGS may deploy temporary seismic stations to better understand the earthquakes. These...

Scenario Earthquakes Javascript must be enabled to view our earthquake maps. To access USGS earthquake information without using javascript, use our Magnitude 2.5+ Earthquakes, Past Day ATOM Feed or our other earthquake feeds .

Induced Earthquakes Cumulative number of M ≥ 2.7 earthquakes in the central and eastern United States (CEUS) and five select zones of induced seismicity since 1980. Hazard Estimation The USGS National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM) forecasts earthquake hazard, or the potential strength and frequency of ground shaking from future earthquakes, in the...

Parkfield Earthquakes 3-D Display of Earthquakes at Parkfield The red lines represent the trace of the San Andreas fault (at the surface). Most earthquakes are shown as white points. Earthquakes with fault plane solutions are represented by blue rectangle, oriented in a selected fault plane The image may be rotated, zoomed, and set spinning with...

Induced Earthquakes Myths and Misconceptions What you do and don’t know about induced seismicity Fact 1: Fracking is NOT causing most of the induced earthquakes. Wastewater disposal is the primary cause of the recent increase in earthquakes in the central United States. Wastewater disposal wells typically operate for longer durations and inject...

Induced Earthquakes Oilfield waste arrives by tanker truck at a wastewater disposal facility near Platteville, Colo. After removal of solids and oil, the wastewater is injected into a deep well for permanent storage underground. Photo by Bill Ellsworth, USGS. Overview Within the central and eastern United States, the number of earthquakes has...

Errata for Latest Earthquakes Beginning in 2010, we have posted information here regarding errors in the Real-time Earthquake system that led to erroneous information getting posted on the website or distributed. The USGS and networks contributing to the Advance National Seismic System (ANSS) take great effort to provide accurate and timely...