The Frequency of Earthquakes – Adding Metrics to the Madness

We apply Trendistic, the web analytics trending tool used in our previous post, to the topic of earthquakes. Covering the past 30 days, we can link spikes in the usage of the keyword “earthquake” on Twitter while associating blog coverage of what was going on during that particular moment. Additionally, the chart allows us to track the frequency of the term as a percentage of total Tweets (how often the topic is discussed in every 100 posts).

February 1
Frequency: 0.08%
Magnitude 6.2 earthquake off the coast of Papua New Guinea but most posts offer continued coverage on Haiti.

“It was a moderate quake, no damage, no tsunami,” said Lawrence Anton, seismologist at the Geological Institute of Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea, located on the “Ring of Fire” Pacific junction of several tectonic plates, is regularly the scene of an earthquake.

February 4
Frequency: 0.08%
Magnitude 5.9 earthquake hits Northern California.

Today’s quake adds to the North Coast’s reputation as being one of the most seismically active regions in the western hemisphere. The Jan. 9 quake caused $40 million in damage, says sfgate.com. Jim Goltz of the California Emergency Management Agency told the Eureka Times-Standard that today’s event might have been an aftershock to the Jan. 9 quake.

February 7
Frequency: 0.05%
Magnitude 5.4 earthquake hits Japan.

The Meteorological Agency said the earthquake hit at 3:10 p.m. (0610 GMT) and registered magnitude 6.6. The U.S. Geological Survey measured it at 6.4. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

February 8
Frequency: 0.06%
Magnitude 5.8 earthquake hits Oaxaca, Mexico.

Some Twitter users in Mexico City reported feeling the quake, though others said they did not. One witness in Mexico City said his building shook for approximately 30 seconds. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

February 10
Frequency: 0.38%
Magnitude 3.8 earthquake hits Chicago.

So, when I woke up and saw that the top story on the news was the earthquake outside of Chicago, of course I called Mom and Dad to make sure they were all right.

“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, we didn’t really get any of the ‘blizzard’.”
“What are you talking about? You had a blizzard.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The earthquake.”
“What earthquake?”
“The earthquake y’all had last night.”
“Betsy, I just turned the news off after the top stories and they didn’t mention an earthquake. I’ll go look for some damage if you want, but it doesn’t even look like the cat’s rattled.”
(Though I have met their cat and I think it always seems a little rattled.)

So, there you go.

February 27
Frequency: 1.01%
Magnitude 8.8 earthquake hits Chile (and where you can donate…).