USGS Earthquake Data Download & Monitor

eventId	us6000u1rh
time	2026-10-12T11:28:43.398Z
updated	2026-10-12T12:43:51.836Z

How it will work: 3 steps

Follow us on ApifyThe tool is built and waits in the queue for the Apify Store. Apify is the cloud platform where our tools run.
Paste your input and press StartNo code needed: you fill in a form (the input). It already has a working example. For example: earthquake in Event types. Each start is one run.
Download the resultsWhen the run ends, the results are in a table (the dataset). Open Output, press Export and pick Excel or CSV. JSON and the API are there too.

This tool is an Apify Actor: a small program that runs on Apify. You can also run it on a schedule, for example every Monday. New to it? Read how it works, step by step and the 8 words you need first.

Made by Cliqto Media, an independent digital media company. We made this tool. About us

What it does

USGS Earthquake Events Export & Monitor exports earthquakes from the official USGS ComCat catalog by time window, area (a rectangle, also across the date line, or a circle), magnitude, depth, event type, review status and PAGER alert. You get one clean row per event with time, coordinates, depth, magnitude and its type, place, status, tsunami flag, felt reports, intensity, PAGER alert and USGS links.

Clean rows. One row per event: eventId, time, updated, latitude, longitude, depthKm, magnitude, magType, place, status, tsunamiFlag, felt, cdi, mmi, alert, significance and links. Values stay as USGS publishes them; depth is not rounded.
Any area. The whole world by default, a latitude/longitude rectangle (west greater than east means it crosses the date line, for example Fiji and Tonga), or a circle around a point.
No silent cut. When more events match than maxResults, the run says so and, when the source answers in time, how many events match in total.
Monitoring. With a monitorKey, the Actor saves the events it saw in your account. The next run marks each event new, revised (with changedFields and previousValues, for example a new magnitude or a reviewed status), deleted or unchanged, and by default writes only the changes.
Long windows. Windows of months or years work: the Actor first reads narrow slices next to the end you sort by, and splits a window in half when USGS is overloaded.

Good for

A daily or weekly table of significant earthquakes for a newsroom, a blog or a dashboard.
Earthquakes near your sites, cities or assets: a circle with radiusKm or a rectangle.
History for research or teaching: years of M6+ events, the largest events in a region, or the oldest first.
A feed of what changed since your last run: new events, magnitude or location revisions, reviewed status and deletions.
Earthquake rows for a spreadsheet, BI tool, webhook or AI agent.

Not a good fit

Real-time alerts or warnings. Use the official USGS ENS service, tsunami warning centers or local systems.
Earthquake forecasts or damage estimates beyond the PAGER alert level that USGS publishes.
A full copy of the catalog. A run returns up to 500 events. For bulk downloads, use the USGS catalog search directly.
ShakeMap, moment tensor or other product files. Rows link to them with detailUrl.

Who uses it

Risk and facility teams

Watch quakes near your sites.

Teachers and researchers

List big quakes of a decade for class or charts.

Newsletter and dashboard makers

Get a weekly list of M4.5+ quakes.

Price

Prices will be shown after release.

Questions

Is this an earthquake warning service?

No. It exports the USGS catalog. Follow local authorities for safety.

Why did a magnitude change?

The first value is automatic. Experts review it later and may change it.

Does the tsunami flag mean a tsunami happened?

No. It only means USGS links tsunami center information.

Do I need an API key?

No. The USGS service is public.

Where does the data come from?

From the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program: the ComCat catalog through the FDSN Event Web Service. Each run reads it live.

Does tsunamiFlag: true mean there was a tsunami?

No. It only means that USGS links tsunami center information for the event. Check official tsunami warning centers.

Does monitoring cost more?

No. Unchanged events are not written and not charged when onlyChanges is on.

Details

Step by step on Apify

Open the Input tab. The form already has an example: the whole world, magnitude 4.5 and up, last 7 days, up to 200 events.
Click Start.
Open the Events view in the Output tab. Check time, magnitude, place, depthKm and alert.
Change the area, magnitude or time window to your own. To get only changes next time, add a monitorKey such as japan-m5.

Use cases

Task	Input	Key fields	Next step
Weekly world M4.5+ list	`lastDays: 7`, `minMagnitude: 4.5`	`time`, `magnitude`, `place`, `alert`	Google Sheets, a newsletter, a dashboard
Earthquakes near a site	`latitude`, `longitude`, `radiusKm`	`time`, `magnitude`, `depthKm`, `felt`, `mmi`	Risk or facility monitoring
Changes since the last run	`monitorKey` on a schedule	`changeType`, `changedFields`, `previousValues`	Slack, email or a webhook
Largest events of a decade	`startTime`, `sortBy: "largest"`	`magnitude`, `magType`, `place`, `tsunamiFlag`	Research, teaching, charts
Pacific date-line region	`minLongitude: 170`, `maxLongitude: -170`	`latitude`, `longitude`, `place`	Maps and GIS

Tips for better results

Use a circle around a point to watch one site.
Near Fiji or Tonga? Set west larger than east to cross the date line.
Use a monitor key to see when a magnitude or depth changes.

Limits and good to know

Up to 500 events per run. When more match, the run reports truncated: true, the total when USGS counts it in time, and a hint. USGS itself refuses lists of more than 20,000 events, so split very large exports into several runs by time
Time windows up to 3660 days (about 10 years), with lastDays or with startTime/endTime. For older history, use several runs. Long windows are read in narrow slices first; in our tests 10-year windows finished in 18–45 seconds. The internal time budget is 270 seconds
If USGS times out or answers 5xx, a window of 12 hours or more is split in half and read again. The run then skips the total count
A monitor baseline (the monitorKey snapshot or the previousDatasetId rows) has a safety cap of 20,000 events. We tested baselines of up to 500 events
Deletions are checked only in monitoring and only for windows up to 31 days
ComCat updates events after they happen: automatic solutions are revised, magnitudes change, events are merged (the preferred eventId can change) or deleted. Small events outside the U.S. are often not in ComCat at all

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Check	Action
`NO_RESULTS`	`RUN_SUMMARY.filters`	Widen the time window or area, or lower `minMagnitude`. Check `eventTypes` and `alertLevel`.
`truncated: true`	`totalAtSource`, `warnings`	Raise `maxResults` (up to 500), narrow the window or area, or raise `minMagnitude`.
`ERROR`, USGS unavailable or timed out	`RUN_SUMMARY.message`	Run again later or use a shorter window. A failed run does not change your monitor snapshot.
`INVALID_INPUT`	`RUN_SUMMARY.message`	Fix the field named in the message.
An event appears as `revised`	`changedFields`, `previousValues`	USGS updated it, often magnitude, location or status after review.
An event appears as `new` although you saw it before	`allIds`	USGS may have merged solutions and changed the preferred ID.
Warning about different filters	`RUN_SUMMARY.warnings`	You changed filters but kept the same `monitorKey`. Use one key per saved search.

For developers

Sample result

One result from a real test run, in JSON. Real values change from run to run. In Excel or CSV each field is a column.

one result · JSON

{
  "eventId": "us6000u1rh",
  "allIds": ["usauto6000u1rh", "us6000u1rh"],
  "time": "2026-10-12T11:28:43.398Z",
  "updated": "2026-10-12T12:43:51.836Z",
  "latitude": -8.873,
  "longitude": 67.3909,
  "depthKm": 10,
  "magnitude": 5.4,
  "magType": "mww",
  "place": "Mid-Indian Ridge",
  "eventType": "earthquake",
  "status": "reviewed",
  "tsunamiFlag": false,
  "felt": null,
  "cdi": null,
  "mmi": 0,
  "alert": "green",
  "significance": 449,
  "url": "https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000u1rh",
  "changeType": null,
  "fetchedAt": "2026-10-12T13:14:24.199Z"
}

Data fields (30)

Field	Type	Meaning
`eventId`	string	Preferred ComCat event ID, e.g. us6000u1n6. Can change when networks merge solutions; allIds keeps the others.
`allIds`	array	Every ComCat ID of this event from contributing networks. Use it to deduplicate across runs.
`time`	string	Origin time, ISO 8601 UTC.
`updated`	string	When the event was last updated at the source, ISO 8601 UTC.
`latitude`	number	Epicenter latitude, degrees.
`longitude`	number	Epicenter longitude, degrees, always -180..180.
`depthKm`	number	Hypocenter depth in kilometres (positive down).
`magnitude`	number	Preferred magnitude; null for the rare events without one.
`magType`	string	Magnitude type, e.g. mww, mb, ml, md.
`place`	string	Nearby place description from the source, e.g. "85 km SE of Hachijo, Japan".
`title`	string	Source title, e.g. "M 5.1 - 85 km SE of Hachijo, Japan".
`eventType`	string	Event type, e.g. earthquake, quarry blast, explosion.
`status`	string	automatic (preliminary), reviewed (checked by a seismologist) or deleted.
`tsunamiFlag`	boolean	True when the event is in an oceanic region large enough that USGS links tsunami center information. Not a tsunami warning.
`felt`	integer	Number of "Did You Feel It?" reports.
`cdi`	number	Maximum reported intensity from "Did You Feel It?" (CDI).
`mmi`	number	Maximum estimated instrumental intensity from ShakeMap (MMI).
`alert`	string	PAGER estimated-impact alert level; null when no PAGER estimate exists.
`significance`	integer	USGS significance score (0–1000+), combining magnitude, felt reports and impact.
`network`	string	Network that contributed the preferred solution, e.g. us, ci, ak.
`sources`	array	Networks that contributed information.
`stationCount`	integer	Number of seismic stations used to locate the event.
`azimuthalGapDeg`	number	Largest azimuthal gap between stations, degrees; smaller means a better-constrained location.
`url`	string	USGS event page.
`detailUrl`	string	USGS GeoJSON detail feed for this event (products such as ShakeMap and moment tensor).
`changeType`	string	Change since the baseline: initial (first monitored run), new, revised, deleted or unchanged. null in a plain export without monitorKey/previousDatasetId.
`changedFields`	array	For revised or deleted events: which tracked fields changed (eventId, time, latitude, longitude, depthKm, magnitude, magType, place, eventType, status, tsunamiFlag, felt, cdi, mmi, alert).
`previousValues`	object	For revised or deleted events: previous value of each changed field.
`provider`	string	Data source.
`fetchedAt`	string	When this run read the source, ISO 8601 UTC.

Input settings (22)

The main fields of the input form. With the API you send them as JSON.

Setting	Name in the API	Type	Example value
Last N days	`lastDays`	integer	`7`
Start time (UTC)	`startTime`	string
End time (UTC)	`endTime`	string
Minimum magnitude	`minMagnitude`	number	`4.5`
Maximum magnitude	`maxMagnitude`	number
Minimum depth (km)	`minDepthKm`	number
Maximum depth (km)	`maxDepthKm`	number
Event types	`eventTypes`	array	`["earthquake"]`
PAGER alert level	`alertLevel`	string	`"any"`
Review status	`reviewStatus`	string	`"all"`
Rectangle: min latitude	`minLatitude`	number
Rectangle: max latitude	`maxLatitude`	number
Rectangle: min longitude (west)	`minLongitude`	number
Rectangle: max longitude (east)	`maxLongitude`	number
Circle: center latitude	`latitude`	number
Circle: center longitude	`longitude`	number
Circle: radius (km)	`radiusKm`	number
Sort by	`sortBy`	string	`"newest"`
Max results	`maxResults`	integer	`200`
Monitor key	`monitorKey`	string
Previous dataset ID	`previousDatasetId`	string
Only changes	`onlyChanges`	boolean	`true`

USGS Earthquake Events Export and Monitor

How it will work: 3 steps