USGS Earthquake Data Scraper

Extract structured earthquake event data from the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, the authoritative source for seismic activity worldwide. This Actor wraps the official USGS FDSN Event Web Service API to deliver clean, structured records of earthquake events including magnitude, precise geographic coordinates, depth, tsunami warnings, PAGER alert levels, community intensity reports, and significance scores.

The USGS Earthquake Hazards Program records and catalogs thousands of seismic events daily across the globe. This scraper transforms raw GeoJSON data from the USGS API into flat, analysis-ready records that can be exported to JSON, CSV, Excel, or fed directly into data pipelines and dashboards. Whether you are building a real-time earthquake monitoring dashboard, conducting seismic risk analysis for insurance or real estate, or feeding data into an LLM-powered research agent, this Actor provides the structured foundation you need.

Key Features

• Date range filtering — Query any historical period from the USGS catalog (data available from 1900s to present)
• Magnitude filtering — Set minimum and/or maximum magnitude thresholds to focus on significant events
• Geographic radius search — Search within a specific radius (in km) around any latitude/longitude point
• PAGER alert level filtering — Filter by USGS PAGER alert level (green, yellow, orange, red) to find high-impact events
• Comprehensive data fields — 25+ fields per event including magnitude, location, depth, tsunami flag, community intensity, and more
• Automatic pagination — Handles the 20,000-record API limit transparently
• Rate limit handling — Built-in retry logic with exponential backoff
• Clean output — Epoch timestamps converted to ISO 8601, coordinates extracted from nested GeoJSON, flat record structure

Output Data Fields

Field	Type	Description
eventId	string	Unique USGS event identifier
title	string	Human-readable event title (e.g., "M 5.2 - 10km NE of San Jose, CA")
magnitude	number	Event magnitude
magnitudeType	string	Magnitude calculation method (ml, mb, mw, etc.)
place	string	Descriptive location string
longitude	number	Event longitude (degrees)
latitude	number	Event latitude (degrees)
depth	number	Event depth in kilometers
time	string	Event time in ISO 8601 UTC format
updated	string	Last update time in ISO 8601 UTC format
timezoneOffset	number	Timezone offset in minutes from UTC
feltReports	number	Number of "Did You Feel It?" reports submitted
communityIntensity	number	Maximum reported Community Decimal Intensity (CDI)
instrumentalIntensity	number	Maximum estimated Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI)
alertLevel	string	PAGER alert level: green, yellow, orange, or red
tsunami	boolean	Whether a tsunami warning was issued
significance	number	Significance score (0-1000), combining magnitude, felt reports, and impact
eventType	string	Event type (earthquake, quarry blast, explosion, etc.)
status	string	Review status (automatic or reviewed)
network	string	Contributing seismic network code
eventCode	string	Event code within the network
stationCount	number	Number of seismic stations that reported the event
minStationDistance	number	Minimum distance (degrees) to the nearest station
rmsResidual	number	Root-mean-square travel time residual (seconds)
azimuthalGap	number	Largest azimuthal gap between stations (degrees)
usgsUrl	string	Link to the USGS event detail page
detailApiUrl	string	USGS detail API endpoint for this event

How to Scrape USGS Earthquake Data

1. Navigate to the Actor in the Apify Store or Apify Console
2. Set the start date — Enter the beginning of your date range in YYYY-MM-DD format (e.g., 2024-01-01)
3. Set the end date — Enter the end of your date range (e.g., 2024-12-31)
4. Set magnitude filters (optional) — Enter a minimum magnitude like 4.0 to filter out minor tremors, or set both min and max for a specific range
5. Set geographic filter (optional) — Enter a center latitude, longitude, and search radius in km to focus on a specific region
6. Set alert level (optional) — Choose a PAGER alert level to find only high-impact events
7. Set max results — Control the output size (default: 100, max: 20,000)
8. Click Start and wait for the run to complete
9. Download results in JSON, CSV, Excel, or access via the Apify API

Example: Find All M5+ Earthquakes in Q1 2024

{
    "startDate": "2024-01-01",
    "endDate": "2024-03-31",
    "minMagnitude": 5.0,
    "maxResults": 1000
}

Example: Earthquakes Near Los Angeles (100km radius)

{
    "startDate": "2024-01-01",
    "endDate": "2024-12-31",
    "minMagnitude": 3.0,
    "latitude": 34.0522,
    "longitude": -118.2437,
    "maxRadiusKm": 100,
    "maxResults": 500
}

Example: Red/Orange Alert Events Only

{
    "startDate": "2020-01-01",
    "endDate": "2024-12-31",
    "alertLevel": "red",
    "maxResults": 100
}

Sample Output

{
    "eventId": "us7000m5n1",
    "title": "M 7.0 - 18 km W of Hachinohe, Japan",
    "magnitude": 7.0,
    "magnitudeType": "mww",
    "place": "18 km W of Hachinohe, Japan",
    "longitude": 141.268,
    "latitude": 40.521,
    "depth": 35.0,
    "time": "2024-01-01T07:10:09.000Z",
    "updated": "2024-01-15T12:30:00.000Z",
    "timezoneOffset": 540,
    "feltReports": 342,
    "communityIntensity": 6.2,
    "instrumentalIntensity": 6.8,
    "alertLevel": "yellow",
    "tsunami": true,
    "significance": 800,
    "eventType": "earthquake",
    "status": "reviewed",
    "network": "us",
    "eventCode": "7000m5n1",
    "stationCount": 182,
    "minStationDistance": 0.5,
    "rmsResidual": 0.89,
    "azimuthalGap": 22,
    "usgsUrl": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000m5n1",
    "detailApiUrl": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/query?eventid=us7000m5n1&format=geojson"
}

Pricing

This Actor uses the USGS public API which is free and requires no authentication. Your costs are:

• Actor start: $0.00005 per run
• Per result: $0.002 per earthquake event record
• Apify platform compute: Billed separately based on usage

A typical run fetching 100 M5+ earthquakes costs approximately $0.20 in result fees plus minimal platform compute.

Use Cases

• Seismic risk assessment — Analyze earthquake frequency and magnitude near properties, infrastructure, or planned construction sites
• Insurance underwriting — Feed historical earthquake data into risk models for property and casualty insurance
• Academic research — Study seismic patterns, tectonic plate activity, and earthquake clustering
• Emergency management — Monitor high-significance events and tsunami warnings for disaster preparedness
• Real estate analysis — Assess seismic risk for investment properties or development sites
• Data journalism — Build interactive earthquake maps and trend analysis for news stories
• LLM/RAG pipelines — Provide structured earthquake data to AI agents for natural language analysis

Integrations

Connect USGS Earthquake Data Scraper with your existing tools:

• Google Sheets — Auto-export earthquake data to spreadsheets for analysis
• Slack/Email — Set up alerts when high-magnitude events are detected
• Webhooks — Trigger downstream processing when new data is available
• API — Access results programmatically via the Apify API

FAQ

Q: How far back does the USGS data go? A: The USGS catalog contains events from the early 1900s to present, though data completeness varies by region and era. Modern instrumented data (post-1970s) is the most comprehensive.

Q: What is the maximum number of results per run? A: The USGS API returns up to 20,000 events per request. This Actor handles pagination automatically, so you can retrieve up to 20,000 events per run.

Q: What does the significance score mean? A: Significance is a 0-1000 score combining magnitude, felt reports, and estimated impact. Higher values indicate more notable events. A score above 600 generally indicates a widely-felt, potentially damaging earthquake.

Q: What do the PAGER alert levels mean? A: Green = limited damage expected, Yellow = moderate damage/casualties possible, Orange = significant damage/casualties likely, Red = extensive damage and high fatalities expected.

Q: Does this Actor scrape the USGS website? A: No. This Actor uses the official USGS FDSN Event Web Service REST API, which is a public data service provided by the US government for programmatic access to earthquake data.

Q: Are there rate limits? A: The USGS API does not document rate limits, but this Actor includes respectful delays between requests and automatic retry logic with exponential backoff if rate limiting is encountered.

Legal Disclaimer

This Actor accesses publicly available data from the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program via their official public API. The USGS data is produced by a US government agency and is in the public domain. This Actor does not bypass any authentication, access controls, or terms of service. Users are responsible for ensuring their use of the data complies with applicable laws and regulations. For questions about USGS data usage, see the USGS Data Policy.

For support, bug reports, or feature requests, please open an issue on the Actor's page in the Apify Store.