January 09, 2007

Help improve earthquake information

I live in an area of the world where earthquakes are very uncommon, that is they are that rare that I never really experienced an earthquake in real life.
Never the less one of my big interests and areas of study is earthquakes, they can tell us many interesting things about the interior of the earth and also give many other forms of information.

I often check in on the USGS online service where they show the different earthquakes registered all around the world.
If you go looking at the specific earthquakes there is a link called "did you feel it" in there you can give your experience of a specific earthquake, so if you do live in a region of the world where earthquakes are not as uncommon as they are here you can help by telling about your experience of the earthquake.
Maybe this information can help to improve in different ways, the more data available the better research can be done and in the end this might also lead to better detection systems, better warning systems and better preparedness from the authorities. Maybe it is a bit much to hope for, a single report probably are not going to do this, but I do think that if enough people were to report in their experiences of earthquakes the people working with the data from USGS and other sources would be able to do an even better job.

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