USGS Quakes Lists Discussion – May 11, 2013

This note is being posted here to see if anyone would like to add some suggestions. I am planning to contact U.S. Policy Makers and ask them to ORDER USGS personnel to prepare an earthquake reference list that will have some consistency to it. I use USGS data for my personal forecasting program. And they keep changing the format of the data etc. That makes it difficult to have my computer programs automatically process the earthquake data.

This discussion is the type of thing that this bulletin board was originally created for. So, lets see if anything good can get accomplished along those lines.

PRESENT PLAN

It is probably not going to be possible to get USGS personnel to settle on one main Web page format. And people would not want to stifle their creativity anyway. But they can have alternate Web pages etc. that can remain relatively stable with consistent data.

There are two approaches and perhaps even others. Both listed here should be used.

APPROACH ONE

The most versatile approach and the one that I will most strongly recommend is to have their Web page programs recognize and act on information sent to a specific Web page through the Web page address. For example, the address might look like this:

http://www.usgs.gov.archives-abc,last10days,5.5-9.9,lat90-90,lon180-180,CVS,descending-time

http://www.usgs.gov.archives-abc,2012/05/09-2013/03/23,5.5-9.9,lat90-90,lon180-180,Map,descending-time-color,descending-magnitude-size

So, that data line would go to the usgs.gov server to a Web page called archives-abc

abc would be the USGS catalog the user wanted to check.

last10days would specify that the list returned should contain earthquake data for the present day and 9 days into the past.

5.5-9.9 would specify that the list should be limited to earthquakes in that magnitude range.

Lat90-90 and lon180-180 would specify that the list should contain earthquakes in those ranges, in this case the entire world.

CSV would specify that the list generated should have a Comma Separated Values format

Descending-time would specify that the most recent earthquake should be at the top of the list.

With the second line, a map would be drawn showing recent selected earthquakes as red and the oldest ones as white. Highest magnitude ones would have the largest dots. And a specific date range was selected.

They did actually have that feature with their most recent previous Web page. You could specify what the magnitude range would be etc. via the Web page address.

Virtually unlimited amounts of different types of data could be selected in this manner. For example, they could add fatalities, building damage, and monetary loss for any earthquakes in the range. Sun and moon location in the sky and their distance from the Earth could be added to the list, and on and on.

Their present and newer Web page versions could change as they wished. But those archive data would still be available to researchers without the need to start from scratch each time they decided to try something different.

APPROACH TWO

Downloadable USGS Web pages could be created that could be saved on a person’s PC. And they would contain information boxes such as magnitude and date range and on and on.

You could store such a Web page on your PC and set it to have and save the values you wish. Then when you wanted those data form the USGS you would logon to the Internet, click on the Web page on your PC, and those data would be returned in the manner you had chosen.

Any additions or other or better ideas?

These are personal opinions.