The interactive world map below uses custom icons created for both tsunamis and earthquakes, color-coded according to magnitude scale values. Icons are labeled “T” for tsunamis and “Q” for earthquakes. This world map visualization offers the option to filter earthquakes and tsunamis by magnitude, and is also a useful source of general information.
Color Coding by Magnitude
| Magnitude | Color | Icon |
|---|---|---|
| Not Available | Cyan | T or Q |
| Less than 5.5 | Gray | T4 or Q4 |
| 5.5 - 6.0 | Purple | T5 or Q5 |
| 6.1 - 6.9 | Orange | T6 or Q6 |
| 7.0 - 7.9 | Red | T7 or Q7 |
| 8.0 - 8.9 | Fucsia | T8 or Q8 |
| 9.0 - 9.9 | Maroon | T9 or Q9 |
Magnitude Scale
| Magnitude | Effects |
|---|---|
| Less than 3.5 | “Minor/micro” earthquake. Recorded on local seismographs, but generally not felt. |
| 3.5 to 5.4 | “Light” earthquake. Often felt, but rarely cause damage. |
| 5.5 to 6.0 | “Moderate” earthquake. At most slight damage to well-designed buildings. Can cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings over small regions. |
| 6.1 to 6.9 | “Strong” earthquake. Can cause damage to poorly constructed buildings and other structures in areas up to about 100 kilometers across where people live. |
| 7.0 to 7.9 | “Major” earthquake. Can cause serious damage over larger areas. |
| 8.0 to 8.9 | “Great” earthquake. Can cause serious damage and loss of life in areas several hundred kilometers across. |
| 9.0 to 9.9 | “Rare Great” earthquake. Can cause major damage over a large region over 1000 km across. |
The GSED is an earthquake dataset of 6,344 entries and 38 columns (up to December 2022), of which the 3,845 occurrences since 1900 alone are being used.
In order to be classified as a significant earthquake, the event must meet at least one of the following criteria: moderate damage (approximately $1 million or more), 10 or more deaths, magnitude 7.5 or greater, Modified Mercalli Intensity X or greater, or the earthquake generated a tsunami.
This database provides information on the date and time of occurrence, latitude and longitude, focal depth, magnitude, maximum MMI intensity, and socio-economic data such as the total number of casualties, injuries, houses destroyed, and houses damaged, and $ dollage damage estimates. References, political geography, and additional comments are also provided for each earthquake. If the earthquake was associated with a tsunami or volcanic eruption, it is flagged and linked to the related tsunami event or significant volcanic eruption – Not all of these metrics are used for visualization purposes.
On the top right corner there is an icon (showing stacked layers) – Hovering over it (or touching it) displays magnitude check boxes to filter earthquakes by selected magnitudes. To exit just move the cursor or tap outside the box.
There are two ways to zoom in and out, either by using the “+” and “-” signs on the top left, or by scrolling up and down with the mouse wheel in the area map. To scroll up and down the page, just move the cursor outside the map. You can also click and drag to move the map in any direction.
The map also groups the earthquakes on each magnitude layer in clusters that depend on the zoom level, and adjust themselves automatically to show the number of earthquakes grouped in each cluster. In this way the earthquakes visualization doesn’t look too crowded.
By hovering the mouse cursor on any icon, a label containing its associated data: magnitude, intensity, year, depth and deaths, is displayed. But, to get a better view of these values you can either click (or tap) on that icon or press ‘Enter’ to see this values on a steady bigger box. To close this box, you can click (or tap) on the “x” inside the box, or just click (or tap) outside.
Important Note:
For best performance, it is recommended not to check all the magnitude boxes at the same time, but only one at a time, since loading thousands of custom icons at the same time requires a lot of memory, which slows down their display.