GeoNet: Earthquake Catalogue

The GeoNet catalogue is where all the technical information about earthquakes is stored. Information such as location, magnitude and arrival times of seismic waves.

Since the 1930's, earthquakes in the catalogue have been determined by instrumental records. Prior to that estimates were made from oral and written records.

Public ID

GeoNet uses a unique combination of numbers and letters to easily identify an earthquake. This is called the earthquake's Public ID. Knowing the earthquake's Public ID makes it quick to get detailed information about the earthquake. The Public ID for an earthquake will remain unchanged and linked to a discrete event, even if related information is updated.

The format of the Public ID has changed over time:

Pre-2012, they were 5-7 digits long
2012 - now, they are YYYYpCCCCCC, the year and a 6-digit code.

Overview of Access Tools

Tool	Description	Output Format
QuakeSearch	Interactive, returns basic earthquake parameters	CSV, GeoJSON, GML or KML
WFS	Web feature service, returns basic earthquake parameters similar to QuakeSearch but supports more advanced searching methods such as polygons. WFS is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard to allow web-based access to geographical data.	CSV, GeoJSON, GML or KML
FDSN webservice	Webservice, includes event, station and waveform services. More info	QuakeML (XML)
GeoNet API	API for accessing a variety of earthquake information, used to build the GeoNet website and therefore highly supported	JSON, GeoJSON and CAP (XML)

Searching the Catalogue

Quake Search

Quake Search is the easiest way to get basic information from the catalogue, such as earthquake locations, magnitude and the PublicID.

Features of Quake Search:

You can search by geographic location, magnitude and time.
Output can be plotted on a map or downloaded using the "build query" feature
Output Formats include: CSV, GeoJSON, GML or KML. Description of output parameters are below.

Note: QuakeSearch results provide only the preferred solutions for the earthquake parameters. It does not include arrival times, origin history or additional magnitude information.

Please see the GeoNet WFS information page for how to use the more advanced WFS service.

More Detailed Information

The full and detailed information about the earthquake, such as uncertainties, arrival times and amplitude picks, location algorithm and velocity model used, can be found in the QuakeML file for each earthquake. See the GeoNet FDSN information page for how to use the FDSN webservice.

Earthquake Source Mechanisms

Earthquake source mechanisms, such as moment tensors, focal mechanisms and fault models, are available for some earthquakes. Moment tensors are regularly determined by GeoNet for most earthquakes above magnitude 4.5.

Description of Catalogue Outputs

Field	Description
publicid	The Public Id, a unique earthquake reference code.
eventtype	The type of seismic event, eg. earthquake, quarry blast, outside of network interest, etc.
origintime	The UTC time of the event's occurrence (in ISO 8601 format).
modificationtime	The UTC time of the event's last update to its information (in ISO 8601 format).
latitude	The latitude of the event (decimal degrees, WGS84 datum).
longitude	The longitude of the event (decimal degrees, WGS84 datum).
depth	The focal depth of the event (km).
magnitude	The magnitude of the event.
evaluationmethod	The computer technique used to locate the earthquake.
evaluationstatus	The status of the location: preliminary, reviewed, etc.
evaluationmode	The mode of location: manual or automatic.
earthmodel	The earth model used by the evaluationmethod.
depthtype	The type of depth determination.
originerror	The standard error of travel time residuals (seconds).
usedphasecount	The number of defining phases used computing the location.
usedstationcount	The number of stations from which phases were used in computing the location.
minimumdistance	The epicentral distance to the closest station (degrees).
azimuthalgap	The largest azimuthal gap in station distribution (degrees).
magnitudetype	The type of magnitude determined.
magnitudeuncertainty	The standard error of magnitude.
magnitudestationcount	The number of stations used to determine the magnitude.