Worldwide Earthquakes API

About the Worldwide Earthquakes API

Requests pull seismic records refreshed hourly from the United States Geological Survey. The endpoint outputs events from the previous hour with magnitudes, coordinates, and tsunami indicators, leaving alert levels null if unassigned. It also provides rolling 24-hour counts and peak magnitudes, while paid plans add the 24-hour average magnitude.

What people use it for

Emergency Alerting Systems

When a tremor occurs, disaster response platforms trigger push alerts based on magnitude, epicenter coordinates, and tsunami warning indicators.

Travel Safety Trackers

Trip planning apps display nearby seismic activity and citizen felt reports along travel routes to warn tourists of active tremors.

Infrastructure Risk Monitoring

To protect bridges and pipelines, civil engineering teams log seismic intensity metrics and epicenter proximity to schedule structural safety inspections.

Geoscience Educational Maps

Interactive classroom dashboards map live earthquake epicenters with magnitude summaries and felt reports straight from USGS records.

Ways to call it

One endpoint, many ways in — REST with JSON, XML, YAML and CSV, plus GraphQL and an MCP interface for AI agents.

JSON

Default REST response

XML

Markup format

YAML

Human-readable

CSV

Tabular export

Beta

GraphQL

Query language

New

MCP

For AI agents

Request parameters — GET /v1/earthquake

1
2

curl "https://api.apiverve.com/v1/earthquake" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Authentication

Send your key in the x-api-key header. That is the only auth step — no token exchange, and no per-endpoint scope to configure.

Response — GET /v1/earthquake

Every APIVerve endpoint returns the same three top-level keys, so one response handler covers your whole integration: status, error and data. Only data changes shape.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58

{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "earthquakes_LastUpdated": "2026-02-18T12:00:00.000Z",
    "earthquakes_LastHour": 9,
    "count24h": 187,
    "largestMagnitude24h": 5.2,
    "avgMagnitude24h": 1.84,
    "earthquakes": [
      {
        "mag": 3.4,
        "place": "153 km SSW of Channel Islands Beach, California",
        "time": 1765921110756,
        "felt": 1,
        "cdi": 2.2,
        "mmi": 2.538,
        "status": "reviewed",
        "tsunami": 0,
        "sig": 178,
        "net": "us",
        "types": ",dyfi,nearby-cities,origin,phase-data,scitech-link,shakemap,",
        "nst": 36,
        "dmin": 0.479,
        "rms": 0.65,
        "gap": 247,
        "magType": "ml",
        "type": "earthquake",
        "title": "M 3.4 - 153 km SSW of Channel Islands Beach, California",
        "coordinates": [
          -119.931,
          32.9103
        ]
      },
      {
        "mag": 2.25,
        "place": "6 km NW of The Geysers, CA",
        "time": 1765921522850,
        "status": "automatic",
        "tsunami": 0,
        "sig": 78,
        "net": "nc",
        "types": ",focal-mechanism,nearby-cities,origin,phase-data,",
        "nst": 54,
        "dmin": 0.01126,
        "rms": 0.05,
        "gap": 23,
        "magType": "md",
        "type": "earthquake",
        "title": "M 2.3 - 6 km NW of The Geysers, CA",
        "coordinates": [
          -122.792831,
          38.819332
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Premium fields are absent rather than zeroed on plans that do not include them, so check for presence instead of comparing to 0.

Response headers

Every response carries your balance, so your own code always knows where it stands without polling anything. All four are exposed to browsers through CORS.

Errors

Read the HTTP status first, then error for the specific reason. The body names the parameter that has to change.

What a call costs — 2 credits per call

Credits are shared across every APIVerve API — one balance, one key, one bill. Failed requests never count against it, so a rejected input costs nothing.

Calls are what the credits buy at this API's rate — spend them here, on any of the other APIs, or across both. Nothing is reserved per endpoint.

Zero-code embed — one snippet, no backend

Drop an interactive Worldwide Earthquakes form onto any page. The widget calls the API for you, so no key ever appears in your markup and there is nothing to deploy.

Changelog — Worldwide Earthquakes API

Every change to this endpoint, newest first. Breaking changes ship as a new version and the previous one keeps serving — response fields are added, never removed or retyped in place, so an integration written against v1 keeps working.

Currently v1Data refreshed hourly