The fdsnws-event web service returns event (earthquake) information from the catalogs submitted to the IRIS DMC.
Events may be selected based on location, time, catalog, contributor and internal identifiers. By default, events are retrieved from the NEIC PDE catalog for recent events and then the ISC catalog when it becomes available. These default results include only that catalog’s “primary origin” and “primary magnitude” for each event, they may optionally include all available origin and magnitude estimates.
By default results are returned as XML in QuakeML format (schema), but may also be requested in text formats.
This service is an implementation of the FDSN web service specification version 1.1.
Please remember that data obtained from our fdsn-event webservice should always be appropriately cited. More information about proper catalog citations can be found under the Event catalogs and citation section in the service Help page.
Below is a full list of service parameters and their usage.
/query? [geographic-constraints] [depth-constraints] [temporal-constraints] [magnitude-constraints] [organization-constraints] [misc-parameters] [format-option] [nodata=404]
or
/query? (id-options) [includeallmagnitudes] [includeallorigins] [includearrivals] [nodata=404]
where
geographic-constraints :: [boundaries-rect] OR [boundaries-radial] boundaries-rect :: [minlatitude=<degrees>] [maxlatitude=<degrees>] [minlongitude=<degrees>] [maxlongitude=<degrees>] boundaries-radial :: [latitude=<degrees>] [longitude=<degrees>] [maxradius=<degrees>] [minradius=<degrees>] depth-constraints :: [mindepth=<km>] [maxdepth=<km>] temporal-constraints :: [starttime=<datetime>] [endtime=<datetime>] magnitude-constraints :: [minmagnitude=<float>] [maxmagnitude=<float>] [magnitudetype=<<all|preferred>|<text>>] organization-constraints :: [catalog=<text>] [contributor=<text> misc-parameters :: [limit=<integer>] [offset=<integer>] [orderby=<time|magnitude>] [updatedafter=<datetime>] [includeallmagnitude=<true|false>] [includearrivals=<true|false>] [includeallorigins=<true|false>] format-option :: [format=<xml|text>] id-options :: (eventid=<id_value>)
(..) required parameter
[..] optional parameter
All parameters must be separated by ampersands (&) as demonstrated in the samples below.
| parameter | examples | discussion | default | type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FDSN options | ||||
| start[time] | 2012-11-29 | Limit to events occurring on or after the specified start time. | any | day/time |
| end[time] | 2012-12-01 | Limit to events occurring on or before the specified end time. | any | day/time |
| BOX search terms incompatible with radial search | ||||
| minlat[itude] | 46.8 | Southern boundary. | -90° | degrees |
| maxlat[itude] | 46.9 | Northern boundary. | 90° | degrees |
| minlon[gitude] | -122 | Western boundary. | -180° | degrees |
| maxlon[gitude] | -121.5 | Eastern boundary. | 180° | degrees |
| RADIAL search terms incompatible with the box search | ||||
| lat[itude] | 40.0 | Specify the central latitude point. | 0.0 | degrees |
| lon[gitude] | 100.0 | Specify the central longitude point. | 0.0 | degrees |
| maxradius | 5.0 | Specify maximum distance from the geographic point defined by
latitude and longitude.
|
180.0 | degrees |
| minradius | 1.0 | Specify minimum distance from the geographic point defined by
latitude and longitude.
|
0.0 | degrees |
| mindepth | -1 | Limit to events with depths equal to or greater than the specified depth | any | float1 (km) |
| maxdepth | 20 | Limit to events with depths less than or equal to the specified depth | any | float1 (km) |
| minmag[nitude] | -1.0 | Limit to events with a magnitude larger than or equal to the specified minimum. | any | float |
| maxmag[nitude] | 8.3 | Limit to events with a magnitude smaller than or equal to the specified maximum. | any | float |
| magnitudetype magtype |
M | Type of Magnitude used to test minimum and maximum limits. Case
insensitive. ex. ML Ms
mb Mw all preferred
|
preferred | text |
| catalog | ISC | Specify the catalog from which origins and magnitudes will be retrieved (available catalogs) | NEIC PDE or ISC | text |
| contributor | NEIC PDE-Q | Limit to events contributed by a specified contributor (available contributors). | any2 | text |
| limit | 25 | Limit the results to the specified number of events | unlimited | integer |
| offset | 20 | Return results starting at the event count specified. | 1 | integer |
| orderby | time–asc | Order results by time/ time-asc or
magnitude/ magnitude-asc |
time | text3 |
| updatedafter | 2000-05-23 | Limit to events updated after the specified time (useful for synchronizing events). | any | day/time |
| includeallorigins | TRUE | Retrieve all origins or only the primary origin associated with each event. read more , note | false | true/false |
| includeallmagnitudes | TRUE | Retrieve all magnitudes for the event, or only the primary magnitude. note | false | true/false |
| includearrivals | TRUE | Specify if phase arrivals should be included. note details | false | true/false |
| eventid | 1234 | Retrieve an event based on the unique ID numbers assigned by the IRIS DMC4 | text | |
| format | text | Specify format. Valid formats include xml and
text |
xml | text5 |
| nodata | 404 | Specify which HTML Status code is returned when no data is found.6 | 204 | 204 or 404 |
1 Values increase positively with depth.
2 When requesting a contributor, the result includes a primary origin as specified by the contributor
3
Valid orderby values
include:time — order by origin descending time
[default]time-asc — order by origin ascending
timemagnitude — order by descending
magnitudemagnitude-asc — order by ascending
magnitude
4
When eventid is used, then only the includeallmagnitudes,
includeallorigins, and includearrivals
parameters are also allowed
5
For format=text , only the primary origin and magnitude
for each event will be returned.
6 By
default, the service returns a HTTP response
code 204, which means the request was successful, but no data (no
content) was retrieved. However, because there was no “error”,
no error message is generated and it may appear that the browser did
nothing. To force an empty query response to display an error message,
add nodata=404 to the URL.
Results are filtered by applying the minmag and maxmag
constraints to either the highest automatically ranked magnitude
(a.k.a. “preferred” magnitude) or to magnitudes specified
by magtype. Use includeallmagnitudes to then
specify whether one or multiple magnitudes are included in the results.
Some common types (there are many) include:Ml —
local (Richter) magnitudeMs — surface magnitudemb —
body wave magnitudeMw — moment magnitude
Alternatively, special magtypes may be
specified:all — compare minmag and
maxmag to all magnitudes in a
catalogpreferred — compare minmag and
maxmag to the highest-ranked magnitude for each event in a
catalog. (this is the same as not specifying a magtype)
magtype comparisons are case-insensitive to accommodate
historical catalogs where case was not preserved.
Output may be formatted as text or XML. If
format=xml or format is not specified, then the results
will be returned in quakeml format. When format=text, then
a simple | separated table is returned. Note, format=text
is not available for includeallorigins=true, includeallmagnitudes=true,
or includearrivals=true. read
more
Retrieve the WADL associated with this service:
/fdsnws/event/1/application.wadl
Year, Month, Day in Month — Time:
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss[.ssssss] ex.
1997-01-31T12:04:32.123
YYYY-MM-DD ex.
1997-01-31
a time of
00:00:00
is assumed
Where:
YYYY :: four-digit year MM :: two-digit month (01=January, etc.) DD :: two-digit day of month (01 through 31) T :: date-time separator hh :: two digits of hour (00 through 23) (AM/PM NOT allowed) mm :: two digits of minute (00 through 59) ss :: two digits of second (00 through 59) ssssss :: one to six digits representing decimal fractions of a second, down to microseconds
Information collected on this page are based on Jane - Document Database for Seismology.