People at Risk: Visualising Global Earthquake Intensity

Benjamin Hennig has created a new map visualizing areas hardest hit by Earthquakes from 2010BC to present, showing that the areas currently being hit hard by quakes really aren’t getting anything new.

The database created by NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center “contains information on destructive earthquakes from 2150 B.C. to the present that meet at least one of the following criteria: Moderate damage (approximately $1 million or more), 10 or more deaths, Magnitude 7.5 or greater, Modified Mercalli Intensity X or greater, or the earthquake generated a tsunami“.

Following an approach of spatial-analyst.net, a kernel density has been calculated from these records to visualise the areas most at risk of earthquakes during that time period.

I really wish he hadn’t distorted the map by intensity and rather left it looking traditional with a heatmap overlay, but either way it’s quite plain to see that South America, western North America, and the East Coast of Asia have long-been prone to quakes.

via People at Risk: Visualising Global Earthquake Intensity | Views of the World.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a visualization scientist working for a federal research lab, aiding researchers to discover the insights buried within their terabyte datasets generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. He also runs VizWorld.com .