Earthquake Shaking at Your Sites (MMI, PGA & PGV): data from USGS ShakeMap

Enter your sites (latitude, longitude) and get the modeled earthquake shaking at each one: MMI intensity, peak ground acceleration (PGA), peak ground velocity (PGV) and spectral acceleration (0.3 s, 1.0 s, 3.0 s), interpolated from the USGS ShakeMap grid of each earthquake. Check recent quakes near your sites automatically, or specific events by USGS ID. Works worldwide, no API key, no login. Published by BigSky Data Tools.

NOT FOR SAFETY-CRITICAL USE: data may be delayed or incomplete; not for life-safety, navigation or emergency decisions; use official USGS sources and local officials.

Most earthquake tools return a list of quakes and a distance. This one answers the question that matters after a quake: how hard did the ground shake at my building, store, plant, policy or supplier?

Why use it?

• 📍 Per-site shaking, not just epicenter distance: MMI (I-X), perceived shaking and potential damage labels, PGA %g, PGV cm/s, PSA, Vs30.
• 🏢 Portfolio scale: up to 5,000 sites per run, as "lat,lon,name" strings or JSON objects with your own IDs.
• 🔎 Two modes: automatic search (dates, minimum magnitude, radius around your sites) or a list of USGS event IDs (historical events back to the ShakeMap archive).
• 🚨 Threshold filter: minMmi keeps only sites with meaningful shaking (e.g. MMI 6+) for scheduled screening; not an alert or warning service.
• 🧾 Event context: magnitude, depth, time, place, PAGER alert, ShakeMap version and review status, USGS links.

How it compares

In our Apify Store search on 2026-10-31 we did not find another Actor offering all of the features marked Yes below together; some alternatives offer individual features, as the "Typical alternatives" column shows. The Store may have changed since.

	This tool	Typical alternatives
Shaking at your own sites	Yes: MMI, PGA, PGV, PSA, Vs30	Event lists or one event-level intensity
Sites per run	Up to 5,000	n/a
Minimum-MMI alert filter	Yes	No
Historical events by USGS ID	Yes	Varies

Who uses it

Property and casualty insurers (exposure), reinsurance and cat-modeling analysts, REITs and facility managers, supply-chain and business-continuity teams, utilities and pipeline operators, lenders and engineers, for screening and planning, not emergency response.

Input example

{ "sites": ["35.6225,-117.6709,Ridgecrest CA", "34.05,-118.25,Los Angeles", {"id": "wh-01", "name": "Reno NV warehouse", "latitude": 39.53, "longitude": -119.81}],
  "eventIds": ["ci38457511"] }

Daily watch of the last 30 days: { "sites": [...], "minMagnitude": 4.5, "searchRadiusKm": 300, "minMmi": 5 }

Output example

{ "siteId": "Ridgecrest CA", "siteName": "Ridgecrest CA", "siteLatitude": 35.6225, "siteLongitude": -117.6709,
  "eventId": "ci38457511", "eventTime": "2019-07-06T03:19:53.040000Z", "magnitude": 7.1, "magnitudeType": "mw", "place": "Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence",
  "depthKm": 8.0, "distanceKm": 17.6, "mmi": 7.19, "mmiRoman": "VII", "perceivedShaking": "Very strong", "potentialDamage": "Moderate",
  "pgaPctG": 38.92, "pgvCmS": 31.68, "psa03PctG": 68.19, "psa10PctG": 35.88, "psa30PctG": 8.15, "vs30MS": 260.0,
  "eventMaxMmi": 8.73, "pagerAlert": "yellow", "shakemapVersion": "1", "shakemapStatus": "automatic",
  "eventUrl": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci38457511", "source": "USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, ShakeMap (U.S. government work)" }

Export to JSON, CSV, Excel or XML, or use the Apify API, Make, Zapier or n8n. Schedule it daily with minMmi to screen for sites above your shaking threshold (screening only, not an alert service).

Pricing

$7 per 1,000 results ($0.007 per result) plus a $0.01 start fee per run.

Pay per result: you pay for each saved row. One row = one site inside the ShakeMap of one earthquake. Sites outside every ShakeMap cost nothing. Duplicate sites (same ID and coordinates) are removed with a warning, so they are not charged twice. Example: 200 sites, 3 nearby quakes, 40 sites inside the maps = 40 rows. Free-plan users can try it within their monthly platform credit.

FAQ

Where does the data come from? From the public USGS earthquake catalog (FDSN event service) and the ShakeMap grid.xml product of each event. Source data are works of the U.S. federal government (U.S. Geological Survey) and generally not subject to U.S. copyright (17 U.S.C. 105). This is not a license or warranty; third-party or foreign rights may apply, including for data from contributing seismic networks. You are responsible for how you use the data. How accurate is the value at my site? ShakeMap combines recorded station data with ground-motion models and site conditions; values are estimates on a grid of roughly 1 km, bilinearly interpolated at your coordinates. Early "automatic" versions are updated as more data arrive; re-run later for the latest version. USGS notes that "ShakeMap intensity estimates are uncertain and could underestimate shaking at the point because of local site conditions" (https://earthquake.usgs.gov/ens/help_region). Why did a quake near me return nothing? Your site may be outside its ShakeMap extent, below your minMmi, or the quake may be below minMagnitude or outside searchRadiusKm. Why is a value empty? Not every ShakeMap has every layer; older or automatic versions often lack some spectral periods (e.g. PSA 0.6 s). Each row's layerNote names every empty field, e.g. psa06PctG: this ShakeMap version has no PSA06 layer or pagerAlert: USGS lists no PAGER alert level for this event. It is null when nothing is empty. Is this engineering or insurance advice? No. It reports USGS model estimates for screening and triage only. Is this tool run by the data agency? No. BigSky Data Tools is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by the USGS.

Is the data guaranteed? No. The tool and data are provided as is, without warranty of accuracy, completeness or timeliness, and values can differ from USGS's official products.