Work on the animation is progressing very well. But it's time to address a few questions which will affect the final approach. I'm beginning to lean towards making something more for public consumption than just a show&tell for our little group here. With that in mind, absolute technical accuracy/detail is not necessary - for example, I have not done anything to represent the depth of the quakes.

For starters, how long of a video would people be willing to sit through? Two minutes? Five? Ten? The longer it is, the less jumbled the quake patterns look, since there is enough time to distinctly display each event. But I don't want to bore people.

Also, I'm considering at least introductory narration. What kind of things should I address? Should I have more to say to keep peoples interest for a longer video?

How much before the main event should I start? Obviously I need to include the foreshock sequence in the days before. But my working data right now is from Jan 1st, and I'm seeing additional activity in the main shock's location in the months prior to the event.

Besides narration, I'm tossing around the idea of background music. Another idea, if I can find a way to make it work easily, would be some sort of soundtrack that is an audio representation of the quake sequence.

Any other ideas?

BTW, I'm using data from the IRIS database, as it seems to go to lower magnitudes than what I pull up on the NEIC search pages.

Brian