About EarthPulse — Live Earthquake Tracker
EarthPulse is a real-time earthquake monitoring tool that pulls live seismic data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earthquake Hazards Program and the GEOFON network at GFZ Potsdam, merging both for broader worldwide and regional coverage. Every 60 seconds the tool fetches the latest earthquake feed and updates the interactive Leaflet map and sidebar list automatically, so you always see the most current global seismic activity without needing to refresh the page.
The tracker covers all earthquakes worldwide — from barely perceptible micro-events to catastrophic major quakes. You can choose from four time windows (past hour, past 24 hours, past 7 days, or past 30 days) to explore recent history or focus on what is happening right now. The magnitude slider lets you cut through the noise of thousands of small events and focus only on the earthquakes that matter most to you.
Interactive map with magnitude scaling
Each earthquake is plotted on the world map as a coloured circle whose size and colour reflect its magnitude. Minor events below M 2.5 appear as small green dots, while major events at M 7.0 and above are shown as large dark-red circles with an outer ring that highlights their severity. Clicking or tapping any circle opens a detail panel with the exact location, depth, UTC time, felt-reports count, and a direct link to the full USGS or GEOFON report.
Heat mode
Toggling heat mode (🔥 button) increases the fill opacity of all markers, turning the map into a density visualisation. This is useful for identifying seismically active zones such as the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Alpide Belt, and mid-ocean ridge systems at a glance.
Mobile-friendly design
On smaller screens the map takes centre stage with a swipeable bottom sheet for earthquake details, a full-screen list panel, and a filter drawer accessible from the bottom navigation tabs. The layout adapts fully so the tracker is as usable on a phone as on a wide desktop monitor.
Data source and accuracy
Data is drawn from two authoritative, freely available networks and merged into a single de-duplicated feed: the USGS public GeoJSON feeds (earthquake.usgs.gov) and GEOFON, run by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (geofon.gfz-potsdam.de). USGS gives excellent global coverage, while GEOFON improves detection of smaller regional earthquakes across Europe and Asia — notably South and Central Asia such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush — that a US-centric feed can under-report. When both networks report the same event, the USGS record is kept as authoritative. Magnitude and depth figures are preliminary for very recent events and may be revised as more seismograph readings are processed; always refer to the linked source report for final values.