Earthquake Business Impact Monitor — USGS, By Location

The seismic companion to the Severe Weather Business Impact Monitor (#72) and Federal Disaster Declaration Monitor (#75): recent earthquakes near your specific business locations, not a global feed. Free, public, keyless, real-time via USGS's official event API.

Input

{
  "locations": [{ "label": "Tokyo Office", "lat": 35.68, "lon": 139.69 }],
  "minMagnitude": 4.5,
  "maxRadiusKm": 300
}

Sample output

{
  "locationLabel": "Tokyo Office",
  "place": "16 km ENE of Hasaki, Japan",
  "magnitude": 4.7,
  "time": "2026-08-29T15:17:06.003Z",
  "depthKm": 45.2,
  "alertLevel": null,
  "tsunami": false
}

Typical uses

• International operations risk — check facilities, offices, or supply-chain nodes in seismically active regions.
• Insurance / reinsurance exposure — track seismic activity across a portfolio of insured locations.
• Logistics / manufacturing continuity — flag disruption risk near ports, plants, or warehouses.

Pricing

$0.002 per matched earthquake.

⚠️ Read before you act

• This is a real-time snapshot of RECENT events, not a live push feed — re-run periodically (a schedule works well) rather than treating one run as an ongoing watch.
• alertLevel (USGS's PAGER estimate) is null for most earthquakes — it's only assigned to events USGS considers significant enough to assess impact for. A null alert doesn't mean "safe," just "not assessed."
• Radius search is a straight-line distance from your coordinates, not a business-relevant boundary — adjust maxRadiusKm to match what actually matters for your use case.

FAQ

• Do I need an API key? No — USGS's earthquake API is free and keyless.
• What does significance mean? USGS's own composite score (magnitude, felt reports, and other factors) — higher means more newsworthy/impactful, independent of raw magnitude.
• Can I search without a location, just globally? Not with this actor — it's built for "near my specific locations," which is the business-relevant question. Omit maxRadiusKm's narrow default (raise it) for broader regional coverage instead.

Related actors

• Severe Weather Business Impact Monitor — the same by-location pattern, for active NWS weather alerts.
• Federal Disaster Declaration Monitor — the official, after-the-fact federal determination that follows a major event like this.