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…).

Staying up to date with Haiti

The dust is still literally settling in Haiti, and the eyes of the world are focused on that small nation, still trying to grasp how many have died and what is to become of the survivors. In the meantime, concerned citizens across the globe want to know what they can do. In the past, that usually meant a charitable donation, and maybe food and blood drives. But with access to tools and technology that are both free and easy to use, people are finding all kinds of ways to contribute their time and energy into aiding Haiti. Thanks to their efforts, it’s entirely possible to bypass the network news, which can actually create a buffer between its viewers and what’s being reported on, and focus directly on the people who need help.

On his blog, Mibazaar, Virender Ajmani has created a Google Map that tracks the origin of Haiti related Tweets in real time. Tweets have been large in volume and building up at a steady rate, and watching the map bounce around from place to place, Tweet to Tweet, helps illustrate how many people are following this story and the progress of attempts to aid Haiti.

While Google Earth is working on updating satellite imagery of Haiti, a download from the Google Earth library provides over a dozen informative overlays that can be used with Google Earth. These overlays show where the earthquake originated, population information, location of aftershocks, potentially affected population areas and more. Although these maps don’t evoke the same emotional response as pictures of refugees or collapsed buildings, they do a good job illustrating the scale of damage created by the earthquake and educate those of us unfamiliar Haiti and its landscape.

At the end of the day, most of us will still only be able to offer our money and our thoughts. But using the internet will keep Haiti in the public eye long after mainstream media has moved onto the next big “thing.” But more importantly, it forces us to remember that this isn’t just a news story, and it won’t be going away any time soon. Public response to this crisis might prove that, given the opportunity, the public might have the stomach for the type of effort this crisis warrants even when our media and government do not.