USGS Earthquakes

Read the USGS Earthquake Catalog: every earthquake the USGS and its contributing networks have recorded, from this minute back through the last century. Watch the real-time feeds on a schedule, search the catalog by time, magnitude, depth, region or PAGER alert level, geo-fence a site and see how far away each event was and in which direction, count a window before you fetch it, pull the largest event of the week, or summarise a period for a digest. No API key, no sign-up and no quota.

Actions

Action	What it does
Check service status	Check whether the USGS earthquake catalog is answering, and how quickly.
Count earthquakes	Count the earthquakes a search would match, without fetching any of them.
Find earthquakes near a place	Find the earthquakes within a radius of a point - a site, an office, a customer's address - nearest first, each with how far away it was in kilometres and miles and which direction it lay.
Get an earthquake by ID	Look one earthquake up by its USGS event id, for re-reading an event an earlier step found or a colleague linked to.
Get recent earthquakes	Get the earthquakes from the last hour, day, week or month from the USGS real-time feeds - the route the USGS asks automated applications to use for recent activity, because the feeds are pre-rendered and cached rather than searched on demand.
Get the largest earthquake	Find the single biggest earthquake in a window, optionally within a region - the one line a weekly digest or a morning briefing wants.
List catalogs	List the catalogs a search can be limited to.
List contributors	List the seismic networks that contribute events - 'ak' for Alaska, 'ci' for southern California, 'us' for the USGS national operation.
List event and product types	List the event types, magnitude types and product types the catalog uses, in one call.
Search earthquakes	Search the full USGS catalog - every earthquake back to 1900 and beyond - by time, magnitude, depth, place, alert level, felt reports and more.
Summarize earthquake activity	Summarise a window's seismic activity for a digest: how many events, how they split across the magnitude bands, the largest and the most significant, how many people felt, how many carried a tsunami flag, and the regions with the most activity.

Check service status

Check whether the USGS earthquake catalog is answering, and how quickly. This is the one action that reports a problem as a value instead of failing the step, so a workflow can decide what to do about it - skip a digest, wait, or say the data is stale rather than dying halfway through. Being throttled is reported separately from being down.

Inputs

None.

Outputs

api_versiontext
messagetext
onlinetrue/false
rate_limitedtrue/false
reachabletrue/false
response_time_msnumber
status_codenumber

Example output

{
  "api_version": "1.14.1",
  "message": "The USGS earthquake catalog is up, running API 2.7.0.",
  "online": true,
  "rate_limited": false,
  "reachable": true,
  "response_time_ms": 143.7,
  "status_code": 200
}

Count earthquakes

Count the earthquakes a search would match, without fetching any of them. One small answer however big the number, which makes it the cheap way for a schedule to ask 'was there anything?' before doing the expensive part - and the way to check a search is inside the 20,000 events one response can carry, since the catalog rejects a bigger one rather than trimming it.

Inputs

Start timestart_timedate and time: Only events at or after this moment. Leave it and 'Days back' empty to use this action's own default window. Times are UTC unless the value says otherwise.
End timeend_timedate and time: Only events at or before this moment. Leave it empty to search up to now, which is what a scheduled run almost always wants: the catalog decides what 'now' is, so an event that arrives while the step runs is still included.
Days backdays_backnumber: Look this many days back instead of naming a start date - what a workflow that runs every morning needs, since 'the last 7 days' cannot be written as a fixed date. Counted back from now, or from 'End time' if you set one. Give this or 'Start time', not both.From 1 to 3650.
Minimum magnitudemin_magnitudenumber: Only events at or above this magnitude. This is the filter that decides how much noise a workflow sees: the catalog records tens of thousands of events a month, almost all of them too small to feel. 2.5 is roughly where people start noticing, 4.5 is the global reporting threshold, and 6 is where damage becomes likely.
Maximum magnitudemax_magnitudenumber: Only events at or below this magnitude.
Minimum depth (km)min_depth_kmnumber: Only events at or below this depth, in kilometres. The catalog allows -100 to 1000; a negative depth is an event above sea level, which is normal in mountainous regions.From -100.0 to 1000.0.
Maximum depth (km)max_depth_kmnumber: Only events at or above this depth, in kilometres. Shallow events shake the surface far harder than deep ones of the same magnitude, so a filter of 70 km or less is a rough stand-in for 'the ones people felt'.From -100.0 to 1000.0.
Latitudelatitudenumber: The centre of a circle to search, in degrees from -90 to 90. Needs a longitude and a radius with it: given only part of a circle the catalog ignores the whole thing and returns events from everywhere, so a partial one is refused here instead.From -90 to 90.
Longitudelongitudenumber: The centre of a circle to search, in degrees from -180 to 180. Needs a latitude and a radius with it.From -180 to 180.
Radius (km)radius_kmnumber: How far around the centre to look, in kilometres, up to 20,001.6 - which is half the Earth's circumference, and so the whole planet.From 0 to 20001.6.
South edge (latitude)min_latitudenumber: The southern edge of a rectangle to search, -90 to 90. The four edges are independent: set only the two you care about to search a band of latitude or longitude.From -90 to 90.
North edge (latitude)max_latitudenumber: The northern edge of a rectangle to search, -90 to 90.From -90 to 90.
West edge (longitude)min_longitudenumber: The western edge of a rectangle to search. Normally -180 to 180, but the catalog lets a box cross the date line by going outside that: 170 to 190 is a real search over the western Pacific.From -360 to 360.
East edge (longitude)max_longitudenumber: The eastern edge of a rectangle to search, -360 to 360.From -360 to 360.
Event typeevent_typetext: Only events of this type. The catalog is not only earthquakes: it also records quarry blasts, explosions, mine collapses, sonic booms and ice quakes, and a search that names no type returns all of them. Choose 'earthquake' to leave the rest out.
Minimum PAGER alert levelmin_alert_leveltext: Only events with a PAGER alert of at least this level, weakest first: green, yellow, orange, red. Worth knowing that this is really a 'has been assessed' filter - the USGS runs a PAGER loss assessment only on the events big enough to warrant one, so most events carry no alert at all and setting this to green still leaves out the great majority of them.One of: green, yellow, orange, red.
Minimum felt reportsmin_felt_reportsnumber: Only events with at least this many 'Did You Feel It?' responses from the public. Like the alert level, this only ever matches events somebody reported, which is a small share of them - but it is the best single filter for 'an event people noticed' regardless of how big it measured.At least 1.
Minimum significancemin_significancenumber: Only events at or above this significance score. The catalog computes it from magnitude, felt reports and estimated impact together, so it ranks a moderate earthquake under a city above a large one in the deep ocean. Roughly: 600 and above is what makes the news, 1000 is a major disaster.At least 0.
Review statusreview_statustext: Whether to include events a seismologist has not checked yet. Automatic solutions appear within minutes and are sometimes revised or withdrawn; reviewed ones are slower and settled. Defaults to all of them.One of: all, automatic, reviewed. Default: all.
Catalogcatalogtext: Only events from this catalog. Leave empty - the default - to get the most preferred information about each event from whichever catalog holds it, which is what almost every workflow wants.
Contributorcontributortext: Only events contributed by this network - 'ak' for Alaska, 'ci' for southern California, 'us' for the USGS national operation. Each event names its own in 'network'.
Has productproduct_typetext: Only events that have this kind of product attached - a 'shakemap' for modelled shaking, 'dyfi' for public reports, 'losspager' for a casualty and loss estimate, 'moment-tensor' for the fault solution. A product is only generated when an event warrants it, so this doubles as a filter for the events the USGS itself treated as significant.

Outputs

countnumber
end_timetext
exceeds_max_returnabletrue/false
latitudenumber
longitudenumber
max_returnablenumber
min_magnitudenumber
radius_kmnumber
start_timetext

Example output

{
  "count": 431,
  "end_time": null,
  "exceeds_max_returnable": false,
  "latitude": null,
  "longitude": null,
  "max_returnable": 20000,
  "min_magnitude": 4.5,
  "radius_km": null,
  "start_time": "2026-07-29T00:00:00Z"
}

Find earthquakes near a place

Find the earthquakes within a radius of a point - a site, an office, a customer's address - nearest first, each with how far away it was in kilometres and miles and which direction it lay. That distance is the thing a radius search leaves out: the catalog returns the events inside the circle but never says how far away any of them was, so it is worked out here. Defaults to a 100 km radius over the last 30 days.

Inputs

LatitudelatitudenumberRequired: The centre of the search, in degrees from -90 to 90.From -90 to 90.
LongitudelongitudenumberRequired: The centre of the search, in degrees from -180 to 180.From -180 to 180.
Radius (km)radius_kmnumber: How far around the point to look, in kilometres. Defaults to 100.From 0 to 20001.6.
Start timestart_timedate and time: Only events at or after this moment. Leave it and 'Days back' empty to use this action's own default window. Times are UTC unless the value says otherwise.
End timeend_timedate and time: Only events at or before this moment. Leave it empty to search up to now, which is what a scheduled run almost always wants: the catalog decides what 'now' is, so an event that arrives while the step runs is still included.
Days backdays_backnumber: Look this many days back instead of naming a start date - what a workflow that runs every morning needs, since 'the last 7 days' cannot be written as a fixed date. Counted back from now, or from 'End time' if you set one. Give this or 'Start time', not both.From 1 to 3650.
Minimum magnitudemin_magnitudenumber: Only events at or above this magnitude. This is the filter that decides how much noise a workflow sees: the catalog records tens of thousands of events a month, almost all of them too small to feel. 2.5 is roughly where people start noticing, 4.5 is the global reporting threshold, and 6 is where damage becomes likely.
Maximum depth (km)max_depth_kmnumber: Only events at or above this depth, in kilometres. Shallow events shake the surface far harder than deep ones of the same magnitude, so a filter of 70 km or less is a rough stand-in for 'the ones people felt'.From -100.0 to 1000.0.
Event typeevent_typetext: Only events of this type. The catalog is not only earthquakes: it also records quarry blasts, explosions, mine collapses, sonic booms and ice quakes, and a search that names no type returns all of them. Choose 'earthquake' to leave the rest out.
Order byorder_bytext: How to order the events. Defaults to nearest first, which is what this action computes and the catalog cannot do itself.One of: distance (Nearest first), time (Newest first), time-asc (Oldest first), magnitude (Largest first), magnitude-asc (Smallest first). Default: distance.
Number of eventslimitnumber: How many events to return, from 1 to 1,000. Defaults to 20. A much larger block is read and ordered before this trims it, and 'complete' says whether that block held every match - so 'the nearest' is never quietly the nearest of a subset.From 1 to 1000.

Outputs

completetrue/false
earthquake_countnumber
earthquakeslist
end_timetext
latitudenumber
limitnumber
longitudenumber
min_magnitudenumber
nearest_kmnumber
order_bytext
radius_kmnumber
scanned_countnumber
start_timetext

Example output

{
  "complete": true,
  "earthquake_count": 1,
  "earthquakes": [
    {
      "alert": null,
      "azimuthal_gap": 68.0,
      "cdi": 2.7,
      "code": "75009182",
      "depth_km": 2.1,
      "detail_url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/query?eventid=nc75009182&format=geojson",
      "direction": "NNW",
      "distance_km": 121.28,
      "distance_miles": 75.36,
      "event_type": "earthquake",
      "felt_reports": 3,
      "id": "nc75009182",
      "ids": [
        "nc75009182"
      ],
      "latitude": 38.8218,
      "longitude": -122.8092,
      "magnitude": 3.2,
      "magnitude_type": "md",
      "min_station_distance_deg": 0.014,
      "mmi": null,
      "network": "nc",
      "place": "7 km NW of The Geysers, CA",
      "product_types": [
        "dyfi",
        "origin",
        "phase-data"
      ],
      "region": "CA",
      "rms": 0.03,
      "significance": 158,
      "sources": [
        "nc"
      ],
      "station_count": 24,
      "status": "automatic",
      "time": "2026-08-28T02:41:09Z",
      "time_epoch_ms": 1787884869000,
      "title": "M 3.2 - 7 km NW of The Geysers, CA",
      "tsunami": false,
      "updated": "2026-08-28T02:55:31Z",
      "updated_epoch_ms": 1787885731000,
      "url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75009182"
    }
  ],
  "end_time": null,
  "latitude": 37.7749,
  "limit": 20,
  "longitude": -122.4194,
  "min_magnitude": null,
  "nearest_km": 121.28,
  "order_by": "distance",
  "radius_km": 250.0,
  "scanned_count": 1,
  "start_time": "2026-07-29T00:00:00Z"
}

Get an earthquake by ID

Look one earthquake up by its USGS event id, for re-reading an event an earlier step found or a colleague linked to. A full event-page link is accepted in place of the bare id. Asking for a single event makes the catalog return every origin and magnitude solution it holds rather than only the preferred one, so this is also the fuller record.

Inputs

Event IDevent_idtextRequired: The event's id, or the full USGS event-page link to it. Usually this comes from an earlier step rather than being typed: every action here returns the id of each event it hands back, and Get recent earthquakes or Search earthquakes is the normal way to get one. An id is a short code the reporting network assigns, such as 'nc75123456'.

Outputs

earthquakeobject
event_idtext

Example output

{
  "earthquake": {
    "alert": "green",
    "azimuthal_gap": 34.0,
    "cdi": 4.6,
    "code": "7000p4kq",
    "depth_km": 28.5,
    "detail_url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/query?eventid=us7000p4kq&format=geojson",
    "event_type": "earthquake",
    "felt_reports": 41,
    "id": "us7000p4kq",
    "ids": [
      "us7000p4kq",
      "at00sxk2p1"
    ],
    "latitude": 54.4712,
    "longitude": -160.7268,
    "magnitude": 6.1,
    "magnitude_type": "mww",
    "min_station_distance_deg": 0.918,
    "mmi": 5.2,
    "network": "us",
    "place": "95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
    "product_types": [
      "dyfi",
      "losspager",
      "origin",
      "phase-data",
      "shakemap"
    ],
    "region": "Alaska",
    "rms": 0.87,
    "significance": 572,
    "sources": [
      "us",
      "at"
    ],
    "station_count": 132,
    "status": "reviewed",
    "time": "2026-08-27T09:14:52Z",
    "time_epoch_ms": 1787822092000,
    "title": "M 6.1 - 95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
    "tsunami": true,
    "updated": "2026-08-27T11:02:10Z",
    "updated_epoch_ms": 1787828530000,
    "url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000p4kq"
  },
  "event_id": "us7000p4kq"
}

Get recent earthquakes

Get the earthquakes from the last hour, day, week or month from the USGS real-time feeds - the route the USGS asks automated applications to use for recent activity, because the feeds are pre-rendered and cached rather than searched on demand. Use this for anything on a schedule. Optionally keep only the events above a magnitude, or within a radius of a place, both of which are applied to the feed here at no extra cost.

Inputs

Feedmagnitude_tiertext: Which feed to read. The USGS publishes one per magnitude floor: 'significant' is the handful it has judged newsworthy, then 4.5+, 2.5+, 1.0+, and 'all', which is every event it recorded and can run to tens of thousands in a month. Defaults to 2.5, roughly where people start feeling them.One of: significant (Significant events only), 4.5 (Magnitude 4.5+), 2.5 (Magnitude 2.5+), 1.0 (Magnitude 1.0+), all (All recorded events). Default: 2.5.
Periodperiodtext: How far back the feed covers. Match it to how often the workflow runs, with room to spare: an hourly schedule reading the past-day feed never misses an event because one run was late.One of: hour (Past hour), day (Past day), week (Past 7 days), month (Past 30 days). Default: day.
Minimum magnitudemin_magnitudenumber: Keep only events at or above this magnitude. Applied to the feed after it arrives, so it can be any value rather than one of the feed's own floors - read the 2.5+ feed and filter to 3.7 if that is your threshold.
Latitudelatitudenumber: The centre of a circle to search, in degrees from -90 to 90. Needs a longitude and a radius with it: given only part of a circle the catalog ignores the whole thing and returns events from everywhere, so a partial one is refused here instead.From -90 to 90.
Longitudelongitudenumber: The centre of a circle to search, in degrees from -180 to 180. Needs a latitude and a radius with it.From -180 to 180.
Radius (km)radius_kmnumber: Keep only events within this many kilometres of the latitude and longitude. Every event kept comes back with its distance and compass direction from that point. Applied here rather than by the service, so a geo-fenced watch still costs one cached request.At least 0.
Order byorder_bytext: How to order the events. Defaults to newest first. The feeds carry no ordering of their own, so this is applied here.One of: time (Newest first), time-asc (Oldest first), magnitude (Largest first), magnitude-asc (Smallest first). Default: time.
Number of eventslimitnumber: How many events to return, after the filters and the ordering. Defaults to 50. 'total_in_feed' always reports what the feed held before any of it, so a short result is never a mystery.From 1 to 20000.

Outputs

earthquake_countnumber
earthquakeslist
feedobject
latitudenumber
longitudenumber
magnitude_tiertext
min_magnitudenumber
order_bytext
periodtext
radius_kmnumber
total_in_feednumber

Example output

{
  "earthquake_count": 2,
  "earthquakes": [
    {
      "alert": null,
      "azimuthal_gap": 68.0,
      "cdi": 2.7,
      "code": "75009182",
      "depth_km": 2.1,
      "detail_url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/query?eventid=nc75009182&format=geojson",
      "event_type": "earthquake",
      "felt_reports": 3,
      "id": "nc75009182",
      "ids": [
        "nc75009182"
      ],
      "latitude": 38.8218,
      "longitude": -122.8092,
      "magnitude": 3.2,
      "magnitude_type": "md",
      "min_station_distance_deg": 0.014,
      "mmi": null,
      "network": "nc",
      "place": "7 km NW of The Geysers, CA",
      "product_types": [
        "dyfi",
        "origin",
        "phase-data"
      ],
      "region": "CA",
      "rms": 0.03,
      "significance": 158,
      "sources": [
        "nc"
      ],
      "station_count": 24,
      "status": "automatic",
      "time": "2026-08-28T02:41:09Z",
      "time_epoch_ms": 1787884869000,
      "title": "M 3.2 - 7 km NW of The Geysers, CA",
      "tsunami": false,
      "updated": "2026-08-28T02:55:31Z",
      "updated_epoch_ms": 1787885731000,
      "url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75009182"
    },
    {
      "alert": "green",
      "azimuthal_gap": 34.0,
      "cdi": 4.6,
      "code": "7000p4kq",
      "depth_km": 28.5,
      "detail_url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/query?eventid=us7000p4kq&format=geojson",
      "event_type": "earthquake",
      "felt_reports": 41,
      "id": "us7000p4kq",
      "ids": [
        "us7000p4kq",
        "at00sxk2p1"
      ],
      "latitude": 54.4712,
      "longitude": -160.7268,
      "magnitude": 6.1,
      "magnitude_type": "mww",
      "min_station_distance_deg": 0.918,
      "mmi": 5.2,
      "network": "us",
      "place": "95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
      "product_types": [
        "dyfi",
        "losspager",
        "origin",
        "phase-data",
        "shakemap"
      ],
      "region": "Alaska",
      "rms": 0.87,
      "significance": 572,
      "sources": [
        "us",
        "at"
      ],
      "station_count": 132,
      "status": "reviewed",
      "time": "2026-08-27T09:14:52Z",
      "time_epoch_ms": 1787822092000,
      "title": "M 6.1 - 95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
      "tsunami": true,
      "updated": "2026-08-27T11:02:10Z",
      "updated_epoch_ms": 1787828530000,
      "url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000p4kq"
    }
  ],
  "feed": {
    "api_version": "2.7.0",
    "generated": "2026-08-28T03:10:00Z",
    "title": "USGS Magnitude 2.5+ Earthquakes, Past Day",
    "url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/summary/2.5_day.geojson"
  },
  "latitude": null,
  "longitude": null,
  "magnitude_tier": "2.5",
  "min_magnitude": null,
  "order_by": "time",
  "period": "day",
  "radius_km": null,
  "total_in_feed": 2
}

Get the largest earthquake

Find the single biggest earthquake in a window, optionally within a region - the one line a weekly digest or a morning briefing wants. A quiet window is reported as 'found: false' with a message rather than as a failure, so a scheduled post can say 'nothing above M4 this week' instead of the step dying on the weeks when that is the news. Defaults to the last 7 days.

Inputs

Start timestart_timedate and time: Only events at or after this moment. Leave it and 'Days back' empty to use this action's own default window. Times are UTC unless the value says otherwise.
End timeend_timedate and time: Only events at or before this moment. Leave it empty to search up to now, which is what a scheduled run almost always wants: the catalog decides what 'now' is, so an event that arrives while the step runs is still included.
Days backdays_backnumber: Look this many days back instead of naming a start date - what a workflow that runs every morning needs, since 'the last 7 days' cannot be written as a fixed date. Counted back from now, or from 'End time' if you set one. Give this or 'Start time', not both.From 1 to 3650.
Minimum magnitudemin_magnitudenumber: Only events at or above this magnitude. This is the filter that decides how much noise a workflow sees: the catalog records tens of thousands of events a month, almost all of them too small to feel. 2.5 is roughly where people start noticing, 4.5 is the global reporting threshold, and 6 is where damage becomes likely.
Latitudelatitudenumber: The centre of a circle to search, in degrees from -90 to 90. Needs a longitude and a radius with it: given only part of a circle the catalog ignores the whole thing and returns events from everywhere, so a partial one is refused here instead.From -90 to 90.
Longitudelongitudenumber: The centre of a circle to search, in degrees from -180 to 180. Needs a latitude and a radius with it.From -180 to 180.
Radius (km)radius_kmnumber: How far around the centre to look, in kilometres, up to 20,001.6 - which is half the Earth's circumference, and so the whole planet.From 0 to 20001.6.
South edge (latitude)min_latitudenumber: The southern edge of a rectangle to search, -90 to 90. The four edges are independent: set only the two you care about to search a band of latitude or longitude.From -90 to 90.
North edge (latitude)max_latitudenumber: The northern edge of a rectangle to search, -90 to 90.From -90 to 90.
West edge (longitude)min_longitudenumber: The western edge of a rectangle to search. Normally -180 to 180, but the catalog lets a box cross the date line by going outside that: 170 to 190 is a real search over the western Pacific.From -360 to 360.
East edge (longitude)max_longitudenumber: The eastern edge of a rectangle to search, -360 to 360.From -360 to 360.
Event typeevent_typetext: Only events of this type. The catalog is not only earthquakes: it also records quarry blasts, explosions, mine collapses, sonic booms and ice quakes, and a search that names no type returns all of them. Choose 'earthquake' to leave the rest out.

Outputs

earthquakeobject
end_timetext
foundtrue/false
latitudenumber
longitudenumber
messagetext
min_magnitudenumber
radius_kmnumber
start_timetext

Example output

{
  "earthquake": {
    "alert": "green",
    "azimuthal_gap": 34.0,
    "cdi": 4.6,
    "code": "7000p4kq",
    "depth_km": 28.5,
    "detail_url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/query?eventid=us7000p4kq&format=geojson",
    "event_type": "earthquake",
    "felt_reports": 41,
    "id": "us7000p4kq",
    "ids": [
      "us7000p4kq",
      "at00sxk2p1"
    ],
    "latitude": 54.4712,
    "longitude": -160.7268,
    "magnitude": 6.1,
    "magnitude_type": "mww",
    "min_station_distance_deg": 0.918,
    "mmi": 5.2,
    "network": "us",
    "place": "95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
    "product_types": [
      "dyfi",
      "losspager",
      "origin",
      "phase-data",
      "shakemap"
    ],
    "region": "Alaska",
    "rms": 0.87,
    "significance": 572,
    "sources": [
      "us",
      "at"
    ],
    "station_count": 132,
    "status": "reviewed",
    "time": "2026-08-27T09:14:52Z",
    "time_epoch_ms": 1787822092000,
    "title": "M 6.1 - 95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
    "tsunami": true,
    "updated": "2026-08-27T11:02:10Z",
    "updated_epoch_ms": 1787828530000,
    "url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000p4kq"
  },
  "end_time": null,
  "found": true,
  "latitude": null,
  "longitude": null,
  "message": "Largest: M 6.1 - 95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska at 2026-08-27T09:14:52Z",
  "min_magnitude": null,
  "radius_km": null,
  "start_time": "2026-08-21T00:00:00Z"
}

List catalogs

List the catalogs a search can be limited to. A catalog is one authoritative collection of events - the ANSS Comprehensive Catalog, a regional network's own, a specific study. Naming none, which is the default everywhere here, gets the most preferred information about each event from whichever catalog holds it.

Inputs

None.

Outputs

catalog_countnumber
catalogslist

Example output

{
  "catalog_count": 8,
  "catalogs": [
    "ak",
    "ci",
    "nc",
    "nn",
    "pr",
    "us",
    "uu",
    "uw"
  ]
}

List contributors

List the seismic networks that contribute events - 'ak' for Alaska, 'ci' for southern California, 'us' for the USGS national operation. Every event names its own in 'network', so this is the list to choose from when filtering a search by one, or to resolve a code an event came back with.

Inputs

None.

Outputs

contributor_countnumber
contributorslist

Example output

{
  "contributor_count": 8,
  "contributors": [
    "ak",
    "at",
    "ci",
    "nc",
    "nn",
    "pr",
    "us",
    "uu"
  ]
}

List event and product types

List the event types, magnitude types and product types the catalog uses, in one call. Worth running once while building: the catalog is not only earthquakes - it records quarry blasts, explosions, mine collapses, sonic booms and ice quakes too, and a search that names no event type returns all of them.

Inputs

None.

Outputs

event_type_countnumber
event_typeslist
magnitude_typeslist
product_typeslist

Example output

{
  "event_type_count": 5,
  "event_types": [
    "earthquake",
    "explosion",
    "ice quake",
    "mining explosion",
    "quarry blast"
  ],
  "magnitude_types": [
    "mb",
    "md",
    "ml",
    "ms",
    "mw",
    "mwb",
    "mww"
  ],
  "product_types": [
    "dyfi",
    "focal-mechanism",
    "losspager",
    "moment-tensor",
    "origin",
    "shakemap"
  ]
}

Search earthquakes

Search the full USGS catalog - every earthquake back to 1900 and beyond - by time, magnitude, depth, place, alert level, felt reports and more. This is the action for a specific question about a window or a region; for watching for new activity on a schedule, use Get recent earthquakes, which the USGS asks automated applications to use instead. With nothing filled in it returns the last 30 days, and the window it actually used is always reported back.

Inputs

Start timestart_timedate and time: Only events at or after this moment. Leave it and 'Days back' empty to use this action's own default window. Times are UTC unless the value says otherwise.
End timeend_timedate and time: Only events at or before this moment. Leave it empty to search up to now, which is what a scheduled run almost always wants: the catalog decides what 'now' is, so an event that arrives while the step runs is still included.
Days backdays_backnumber: Look this many days back instead of naming a start date - what a workflow that runs every morning needs, since 'the last 7 days' cannot be written as a fixed date. Counted back from now, or from 'End time' if you set one. Give this or 'Start time', not both.From 1 to 3650.
Minimum magnitudemin_magnitudenumber: Only events at or above this magnitude. This is the filter that decides how much noise a workflow sees: the catalog records tens of thousands of events a month, almost all of them too small to feel. 2.5 is roughly where people start noticing, 4.5 is the global reporting threshold, and 6 is where damage becomes likely.
Maximum magnitudemax_magnitudenumber: Only events at or below this magnitude.
Minimum depth (km)min_depth_kmnumber: Only events at or below this depth, in kilometres. The catalog allows -100 to 1000; a negative depth is an event above sea level, which is normal in mountainous regions.From -100.0 to 1000.0.
Maximum depth (km)max_depth_kmnumber: Only events at or above this depth, in kilometres. Shallow events shake the surface far harder than deep ones of the same magnitude, so a filter of 70 km or less is a rough stand-in for 'the ones people felt'.From -100.0 to 1000.0.
Latitudelatitudenumber: The centre of a circle to search, in degrees from -90 to 90. Needs a longitude and a radius with it: given only part of a circle the catalog ignores the whole thing and returns events from everywhere, so a partial one is refused here instead.From -90 to 90.
Longitudelongitudenumber: The centre of a circle to search, in degrees from -180 to 180. Needs a latitude and a radius with it.From -180 to 180.
Radius (km)radius_kmnumber: How far around the centre to look, in kilometres, up to 20,001.6 - which is half the Earth's circumference, and so the whole planet.From 0 to 20001.6.
South edge (latitude)min_latitudenumber: The southern edge of a rectangle to search, -90 to 90. The four edges are independent: set only the two you care about to search a band of latitude or longitude.From -90 to 90.
North edge (latitude)max_latitudenumber: The northern edge of a rectangle to search, -90 to 90.From -90 to 90.
West edge (longitude)min_longitudenumber: The western edge of a rectangle to search. Normally -180 to 180, but the catalog lets a box cross the date line by going outside that: 170 to 190 is a real search over the western Pacific.From -360 to 360.
East edge (longitude)max_longitudenumber: The eastern edge of a rectangle to search, -360 to 360.From -360 to 360.
Event typeevent_typetext: Only events of this type. The catalog is not only earthquakes: it also records quarry blasts, explosions, mine collapses, sonic booms and ice quakes, and a search that names no type returns all of them. Choose 'earthquake' to leave the rest out.
Minimum PAGER alert levelmin_alert_leveltext: Only events with a PAGER alert of at least this level, weakest first: green, yellow, orange, red. Worth knowing that this is really a 'has been assessed' filter - the USGS runs a PAGER loss assessment only on the events big enough to warrant one, so most events carry no alert at all and setting this to green still leaves out the great majority of them.One of: green, yellow, orange, red.
Minimum felt reportsmin_felt_reportsnumber: Only events with at least this many 'Did You Feel It?' responses from the public. Like the alert level, this only ever matches events somebody reported, which is a small share of them - but it is the best single filter for 'an event people noticed' regardless of how big it measured.At least 1.
Minimum significancemin_significancenumber: Only events at or above this significance score. The catalog computes it from magnitude, felt reports and estimated impact together, so it ranks a moderate earthquake under a city above a large one in the deep ocean. Roughly: 600 and above is what makes the news, 1000 is a major disaster.At least 0.
Review statusreview_statustext: Whether to include events a seismologist has not checked yet. Automatic solutions appear within minutes and are sometimes revised or withdrawn; reviewed ones are slower and settled. Defaults to all of them.One of: all, automatic, reviewed. Default: all.
Catalogcatalogtext: Only events from this catalog. Leave empty - the default - to get the most preferred information about each event from whichever catalog holds it, which is what almost every workflow wants.
Contributorcontributortext: Only events contributed by this network - 'ak' for Alaska, 'ci' for southern California, 'us' for the USGS national operation. Each event names its own in 'network'.
Has productproduct_typetext: Only events that have this kind of product attached - a 'shakemap' for modelled shaking, 'dyfi' for public reports, 'losspager' for a casualty and loss estimate, 'moment-tensor' for the fault solution. A product is only generated when an event warrants it, so this doubles as a filter for the events the USGS itself treated as significant.
Updated afterupdated_afterdate and time: Only events whose record changed after this moment, whenever the earthquake itself happened. This is how a workflow keeps a copy in step: a solution revised days later shows up here even though its time has not moved.
Order byorder_bytext: How the catalog should order the results.One of: time (Newest first), time-asc (Oldest first), magnitude (Largest first), magnitude-asc (Smallest first). Default: time.
Number of eventslimitnumber: How many events to return, from 1 to 20,000. Defaults to 50. The catalog rejects a search whose result would run past 20,000 rather than trimming it, so run Count earthquakes first if a window might be that busy.From 1 to 20000.
Start at event numberoffsetnumber: Skip to this position in the results, counting from 1, to page through a search bigger than one call. Pair it with the same ordering every time, or two pages can overlap.At least 1.

Outputs

earthquake_countnumber
earthquakeslist
end_timetext
latitudenumber
limitnumber
longitudenumber
min_magnitudenumber
more_availabletrue/false
offsetnumber
order_bytext
radius_kmnumber
start_timetext

Example output

{
  "earthquake_count": 1,
  "earthquakes": [
    {
      "alert": "green",
      "azimuthal_gap": 34.0,
      "cdi": 4.6,
      "code": "7000p4kq",
      "depth_km": 28.5,
      "detail_url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/query?eventid=us7000p4kq&format=geojson",
      "event_type": "earthquake",
      "felt_reports": 41,
      "id": "us7000p4kq",
      "ids": [
        "us7000p4kq",
        "at00sxk2p1"
      ],
      "latitude": 54.4712,
      "longitude": -160.7268,
      "magnitude": 6.1,
      "magnitude_type": "mww",
      "min_station_distance_deg": 0.918,
      "mmi": 5.2,
      "network": "us",
      "place": "95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
      "product_types": [
        "dyfi",
        "losspager",
        "origin",
        "phase-data",
        "shakemap"
      ],
      "region": "Alaska",
      "rms": 0.87,
      "significance": 572,
      "sources": [
        "us",
        "at"
      ],
      "station_count": 132,
      "status": "reviewed",
      "time": "2026-08-27T09:14:52Z",
      "time_epoch_ms": 1787822092000,
      "title": "M 6.1 - 95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
      "tsunami": true,
      "updated": "2026-08-27T11:02:10Z",
      "updated_epoch_ms": 1787828530000,
      "url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000p4kq"
    }
  ],
  "end_time": null,
  "latitude": null,
  "limit": 50,
  "longitude": null,
  "min_magnitude": 4.5,
  "more_available": false,
  "offset": 1,
  "order_by": "time",
  "radius_km": null,
  "start_time": "2026-07-29T00:00:00Z"
}

Summarize earthquake activity

Summarise a window's seismic activity for a digest: how many events, how they split across the magnitude bands, the largest and the most significant, how many people felt, how many carried a tsunami flag, and the regions with the most activity. The total is exact however busy the window; the rest is computed over the events read, and 'complete' says whether those are the same set. Defaults to the last 7 days.

Inputs

Start timestart_timedate and time: Only events at or after this moment. Leave it and 'Days back' empty to use this action's own default window. Times are UTC unless the value says otherwise.
End timeend_timedate and time: Only events at or before this moment. Leave it empty to search up to now, which is what a scheduled run almost always wants: the catalog decides what 'now' is, so an event that arrives while the step runs is still included.
Days backdays_backnumber: Look this many days back instead of naming a start date - what a workflow that runs every morning needs, since 'the last 7 days' cannot be written as a fixed date. Counted back from now, or from 'End time' if you set one. Give this or 'Start time', not both.From 1 to 3650.
Minimum magnitudemin_magnitudenumber: Only events at or above this magnitude. This is the filter that decides how much noise a workflow sees: the catalog records tens of thousands of events a month, almost all of them too small to feel. 2.5 is roughly where people start noticing, 4.5 is the global reporting threshold, and 6 is where damage becomes likely.
Latitudelatitudenumber: The centre of a circle to search, in degrees from -90 to 90. Needs a longitude and a radius with it: given only part of a circle the catalog ignores the whole thing and returns events from everywhere, so a partial one is refused here instead.From -90 to 90.
Longitudelongitudenumber: The centre of a circle to search, in degrees from -180 to 180. Needs a latitude and a radius with it.From -180 to 180.
Radius (km)radius_kmnumber: How far around the centre to look, in kilometres, up to 20,001.6 - which is half the Earth's circumference, and so the whole planet.From 0 to 20001.6.
South edge (latitude)min_latitudenumber: The southern edge of a rectangle to search, -90 to 90. The four edges are independent: set only the two you care about to search a band of latitude or longitude.From -90 to 90.
North edge (latitude)max_latitudenumber: The northern edge of a rectangle to search, -90 to 90.From -90 to 90.
West edge (longitude)min_longitudenumber: The western edge of a rectangle to search. Normally -180 to 180, but the catalog lets a box cross the date line by going outside that: 170 to 190 is a real search over the western Pacific.From -360 to 360.
East edge (longitude)max_longitudenumber: The eastern edge of a rectangle to search, -360 to 360.From -360 to 360.
Event typeevent_typetext: Only events of this type. The catalog is not only earthquakes: it also records quarry blasts, explosions, mine collapses, sonic booms and ice quakes, and a search that names no type returns all of them. Choose 'earthquake' to leave the rest out.
Events to analyzesample_limitnumber: How many events to read for the figures, from 1 to 20,000. Defaults to 1,000, which covers a normal week above magnitude 2.5 several times over. Raise it for a wider window or a lower magnitude floor; the total is counted separately and stays exact either way.From 1 to 20000.

Outputs

alert_countsobject
analyzed_countnumber
average_magnitudenumber
completetrue/false
deepest_kmnumber
end_timetext
felt_countnumber
largestobject
latitudenumber
longitudenumber
magnitude_bandsobject
max_magnitudenumber
min_magnitudenumber
min_magnitude_seennumber
most_significantobject
radius_kmnumber
shallowest_kmnumber
start_timetext
top_regionslist
totalnumber
tsunami_countnumber

Example output

{
  "alert_counts": {
    "green": 1,
    "none": 1,
    "orange": 0,
    "red": 0,
    "yellow": 0
  },
  "analyzed_count": 2,
  "average_magnitude": 4.65,
  "complete": true,
  "deepest_km": 28.5,
  "end_time": null,
  "felt_count": 2,
  "largest": {
    "alert": "green",
    "azimuthal_gap": 34.0,
    "cdi": 4.6,
    "code": "7000p4kq",
    "depth_km": 28.5,
    "detail_url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/query?eventid=us7000p4kq&format=geojson",
    "event_type": "earthquake",
    "felt_reports": 41,
    "id": "us7000p4kq",
    "ids": [
      "us7000p4kq",
      "at00sxk2p1"
    ],
    "latitude": 54.4712,
    "longitude": -160.7268,
    "magnitude": 6.1,
    "magnitude_type": "mww",
    "min_station_distance_deg": 0.918,
    "mmi": 5.2,
    "network": "us",
    "place": "95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
    "product_types": [
      "dyfi",
      "losspager",
      "origin",
      "phase-data",
      "shakemap"
    ],
    "region": "Alaska",
    "rms": 0.87,
    "significance": 572,
    "sources": [
      "us",
      "at"
    ],
    "station_count": 132,
    "status": "reviewed",
    "time": "2026-08-27T09:14:52Z",
    "time_epoch_ms": 1787822092000,
    "title": "M 6.1 - 95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
    "tsunami": true,
    "updated": "2026-08-27T11:02:10Z",
    "updated_epoch_ms": 1787828530000,
    "url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000p4kq"
  },
  "latitude": null,
  "longitude": null,
  "magnitude_bands": {
    "m2_to_3": 0,
    "m3_to_4": 1,
    "m4_to_5": 0,
    "m5_to_6": 0,
    "m6_to_7": 1,
    "m7_plus": 0,
    "under_2": 0,
    "unknown": 0
  },
  "max_magnitude": 6.1,
  "min_magnitude": 2.5,
  "min_magnitude_seen": 3.2,
  "most_significant": {
    "alert": "green",
    "azimuthal_gap": 34.0,
    "cdi": 4.6,
    "code": "7000p4kq",
    "depth_km": 28.5,
    "detail_url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/query?eventid=us7000p4kq&format=geojson",
    "event_type": "earthquake",
    "felt_reports": 41,
    "id": "us7000p4kq",
    "ids": [
      "us7000p4kq",
      "at00sxk2p1"
    ],
    "latitude": 54.4712,
    "longitude": -160.7268,
    "magnitude": 6.1,
    "magnitude_type": "mww",
    "min_station_distance_deg": 0.918,
    "mmi": 5.2,
    "network": "us",
    "place": "95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
    "product_types": [
      "dyfi",
      "losspager",
      "origin",
      "phase-data",
      "shakemap"
    ],
    "region": "Alaska",
    "rms": 0.87,
    "significance": 572,
    "sources": [
      "us",
      "at"
    ],
    "station_count": 132,
    "status": "reviewed",
    "time": "2026-08-27T09:14:52Z",
    "time_epoch_ms": 1787822092000,
    "title": "M 6.1 - 95 km SSW of Sand Point, Alaska",
    "tsunami": true,
    "updated": "2026-08-27T11:02:10Z",
    "updated_epoch_ms": 1787828530000,
    "url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000p4kq"
  },
  "radius_km": null,
  "shallowest_km": 2.1,
  "start_time": "2026-08-21T00:00:00Z",
  "top_regions": [
    {
      "count": 1,
      "region": "Alaska"
    },
    {
      "count": 1,
      "region": "CA"
    }
  ],
  "total": 2,
  "tsunami_count": 1
}

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Check service statusCopy Anchor Link

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Count earthquakesCopy Anchor Link

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Find earthquakes near a placeCopy Anchor Link

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Get an earthquake by IDCopy Anchor Link

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Get recent earthquakesCopy Anchor Link

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Get the largest earthquakeCopy Anchor Link

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List catalogsCopy Anchor Link

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List contributorsCopy Anchor Link

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List event and product typesCopy Anchor Link

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Search earthquakesCopy Anchor Link

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Summarize earthquake activityCopy Anchor Link

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On this page

Actions

Check service status

Count earthquakes

Find earthquakes near a place

Get an earthquake by ID

Get recent earthquakes

Get the largest earthquake

List catalogs

List contributors

List event and product types

Search earthquakes

Summarize earthquake activity