NetQuakes
NetQuakes in the News
- Downtown Joe's shaking things up
NetQuakes finds a home in Napa.
- NetQuakes: Monitoring Earthquakes with Help from the Crowd
Eric Blattberg of Crowdsourcing.org views the NetQuakes program as Citizen Science.
- Seismic citizens: Volunteers host home-based seismometers to help assess earthquake threat
Timothy Oleson for Earth Magazine profiles an enthusiastic NetQuakes volunteer and discusses the scientific significance of the seismometers.
- Bringing Earthquake Science into Your Home
Obtaining timely earthquake information has become easier with interactive earthquake maps and NetQuakes, a citizen-science program that helps scientists to understand ground shaking caused by earthquakes.
The USGS is trying to achieve a denser and more uniform spacing of seismographs in select urban areas to provide better measurements of ground motion during earthquakes. These measurements improve our ability to make rapid post-earthquake assessments of expected damage and contribute to the continuing development of engineering standards for construction.
To accomplish this, we developed a new type of digital seismograph that communicates its data to the USGS via the internet. The seismographs connect to a local network via WiFi and use existing broadband connections to transmit data after an earthquake. The instruments are designed to be installed in private homes, businesses, public buildings and schools with an existing broadband connection to the internet.
View Data
The most recent triggered activity at each seismograph is available online.
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Over the next several years we hope to deploy many more of these seismographs in several urban areas. We are collecting names and addresses of people who are willing to host one of these seismographs so that as they become available, we will be able to place them in the most effective locations.
The NetQuakes seismographs access the internet via a wireless router connected to your existing broadband internet connection. The seismograph transmits data only after earthquakes greater than magnitude 3 and otherwise does not consume significant bandwidth.
