Monitoring earthquakes daily
Part of Hall of Planet Earth.
AMNH/R.Mickens The Earthquake Monitoring Station in the Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth features a recorder showing real-time ground shaking at stations in Alaska, Arizona, and Japan. The stations are part of a network that monitors global seismic activity to provide warnings.
A screen showing seismic activity uses red dots for that day's events, orange for the day before, yellow for the previous two weeks, and purple for the past five years. Yellow rings around each dot indicate the earthquake's magnitude. The screen shows both global and U.S. views.
Earthquakes happen all the time because of the slow but continuous motion of the lithosphere. Recording both large and small earthquakes helps us understand the structure of Earth and points to where earthquakes are likely to occur in the future.
