Event

The event dictionary contains the following keys. Note that the event parameters listed here can become outdated as new information becomes available. For anyone using these data we strongly encourage you to retrieve updated event information from the USGS Comcat database (Comcat API documentation).

type

The value is always “Feature” (string; required).

properties

A dictionary with the following keys (dictionary; required):

id

A unique event id (string; required).

time

Event origin time in UTC ISO 8601 extended format (i.e., with separators between the year, month, and day, and the hour, minutes, and seconds, and with a “T” between the date and time)(string; required).

magnitude

Earthquake magnitude (float; required).

geometry

A dictionary with the following keys (dictionary; required);

type

The value is always “Point” (string; required).

coordinates

A list of three floats: longitude, latitude, and depth.

Including the “event” dictionary is not required, but if it is present then the above elements are required.

Note

“depth” in the events geometry coordinates array conforms with the GeoJSON standard (meters above WGS datum). This is different from seismic metadata convention, which is kilometers positive downward.

The following example illustrates the “event” dictionary:

{
    ...
    "event": {
        "type": "Feature",
        "properties": {
            "id": "ci38457511",
            "time": "2019-07-06T03:19:53Z",
            "magnitude": 7.1
        },
        "geometry": {
            "type": "Point",
            "coordinates": [
                -117.599,
                35.77,
                8.0
            ]
        }
    }
}