feals: THE WORLD-WIDE EARTHQUAKE LOCATOR

	QUAKE REPORT Find out about the latest earthquakes around the world.		QUAKE MAPPING View the lastest earthquakes on a world map, along with extra data such as plate boundaries, faults and volcanoes.
	CATALOGUE QUERY Search our earthquake catalogue, and map your results.		QUAKE PREDICTION Find out about areas that are predicted to have an increased chance of experiencing a major earthquake.
	QUAKE ANIMATION View earthquakes over the past month as an SVG animation.

The World-Wide Earthquake Locator aims to provide up-to-date information and detailed dynamic maps of earthquakes across the world within a maximum of 24 hours of their occurence. This web site also includes a database of past earthquakes, an animation of the past month's earthquakes, and statistical earthquake prediction.

The World-Wide Earthquake Locator was originally developed by Bruce Gittings of the School of GeoScience at the University of Edinburgh in 1995 and it became an early illustration of a real-time Geographical Information System which makes use the internet World-Wide Web and the internet to map dynamic phenomena.
The Locator takes data from the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC), part of the US Geological Survey, based in Golden, Colorado (USA). This data provides basic information about the location of recent earthquakes and their strength within hours of the events taking place.

What are Earthquakes? An earthquake is manifested as a shaking of the ground resulting from a series of shock waves generated following the brittle failure of rocks within the earth's crust or upper mantle. The failure comes about due to the build up of stress which occurs because of the constant movement of blocks of the earth's crust known as the lithospheric plates. Failure occurs at a point, or in a fairly small zone, known as the focus with the epicentre being the point on the earth' surface directly above this focus. However, once failure has occurred, movement may persist along a zone of weakness - known as a fault - for a considerable distance, occasionally as much as 1000 km).
Many earthquakes occur each year, on average greater than 800,000, but most are small and not felt by humans. A severe earthquake, with a magnitude of greater than 8.0, can be expected every 8 to 10 years. Yet, a significant number of smaller earthquakes, which are still capable of destruction, occur each year.
Earthquakes show a marked spatial distribution. The vast majority are located within narrow zones which correspond to the boundaries of the plates. These plates are in continuous movement relative to each other, thought to be driven by convective processes in the earth's mantle, the region of rocks beneath the crust which are heated to the point of becoming soft or plastic.

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