The United States Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center site offers readers near real time updates of seismological events worldwide. As one can gather from a glimpse at the report, our planet is in a near constant state of geophysical change and upheaval, given the numerous earthquakes registered on a daily basis by the NEIC, sometimes up to a dozen or more. Readers will...

The Maryland Geological Survey (MGS) provides excellent information about the geology of the Old Line State, along with public reports and updates on various ongoing projects. The homepage features live earthquake data and maps that deal with oyster habitat restoration projects, fact sheets, and new reports on lead concentrations in well water across the state. The Publications area contains...

Based at the University of California, Berkeley, the National Information Service for Earthquake Engineering (NISEE) is a public service of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center. NISEE was started in 1972 and the site contains hundreds of publicly sponsored technical reports, research papers, data sets, and other materials related to scholarly investigations in this field. Visitors...

The US Geological Survey National Strong-Motion Program (NSMP) Data Sets Web site contains three informative and helpful digital data compilations. These include the Digitized Strong-Motion Accelerograms of North and Central American Earthquakes 1933-1986, which is a collection of 1,477 three-component station recordings from nearly 500 earthquakes. The second is the National Strong-Motion Network...

The National Information Service for Earthquake Engineering (NISEE) has a huge collection of earthquake data and images for researchers or anyone with a passing interest in these destructive forces. Operated at the University of California, Berkeley, the site has ten "eBooks" that range in topic from introductory earthquake engineering to earthquake risk-reduction measures. A giant database is...

A project between the University of California Berkeley Seismological Laboratory and the United State Geological Survey, the Northern California Earthquake Data Center (NCEDC) "is a long-term archive and distribution center for seismological and geodetic data for Northern and Central California." Educators and students can examine recent seismograms from the Berkeley Digital Seismic Network....

While the media tends to cover the well-known San Andreas fault when speaking about the potential danger of a massive earthquake in the Los Angeles basin, the Puente Hills fault system may in fact be equally, if not more, threatening. Discovered four years ago, the extensive fault system is capable of generating earthquakes up to a 7.5 on the Richter scale, and it runs immediately under downtown...

To say that there are a few earthquake research centers in Southern California is a bit like saying that Chicago sits on a lake of some size. It's a bit of an obvious remark, but given that there are a number of such projects, it's important to take a look at some of the more compelling ones out there. One such important resource is the Southern California Earthquake Data Center, sponsored by a...

As part of the US Geological Survey, the Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory is responsible for installing and maintaining a global network of seismograph stations and collecting and distributing the data produced by these stations. The Live Internet Seismic Server (LISS) Web site provides this data free to the public from over fifty stations around the globe and is updated every 30 minutes. The...