USGS Earthquake Hazards Program

About USGS Earthquake Hazards Program

The USGS Earthquake Hazards Program provides an FDSN-compliant Event Web Service for querying earthquake catalog data. The API is accessed via https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/ and supports methods for querying events, counting results, listing available catalogs and contributors, and retrieving service version and metadata. Query results can be filtered by time range, geographic rectangle or circular radius, catalog, contributor, and event ID.

Output formats include CSV, GeoJSON, KML, QuakeML/XML, and plain text, with format-specific parameters such as callback and jsonerror for GeoJSON and kmlanimated and kmlcolorby for KML. Additional parameters control inclusion of all magnitudes, all origins, deleted events, and superseded products for a given event.

The documentation notes that automated applications displaying earthquake information should use the Real-time GeoJSON Feeds instead of this query service, as those feeds offer better performance and availability for that purpose. This service is intended for custom searches of earthquake data by developers building applications that need catalog-level querying rather than live feed consumption.

Key features

• Query global earthquake catalog data with custom search parameters
• Filter results by time range, location (rectangle or circle radius), magnitude, and catalog/contributor
• Multiple output formats: GeoJSON, CSV, KML, XML/QuakeML, and plain text
• Count endpoint to get event totals matching query parameters without full results
• Select specific events by ID with full origin and magnitude details
• Discover available catalogs and contributors via dedicated endpoints

Frequently asked questions