Re: They Did It Again! - USGS Earthquake Data Format Change - September 4, 2013
Posted by Skywise on September 08, 2013 at 16:23:07:

What you are suggesting is a web API. They already have that.

If you'll note, that search page is titled "Earthquake Archive Search & URL Builder". It's a "human readable" interface for generating a properly formatted machine readable URL for the API interface.

Documentation for the format of the API is available on the help page.

http://comcat.cr.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/

Brian