Locate earthquakes in Google Earth

I receive e-mail warnings from the U.S. National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Tsunami Warning Center about earthquakes that may cause tsunami events in the Pacific Rim. The service is fast, free and helpful to emergency response authorities.

Since late July, I've received alerts about several earthquakes: two in the South Pacific, two in the Aleutian Islands (Alaska), and the big one off the coast of Peru.

The PTWC warnings are text-based so they can be received on the lowest common technology denominator, I suppose. The alerts contain no HTML links to the PTWC Web site, where you can see maps showing locations of the earthquakes. So I can find it hard to place an event's latitude and longitude in my mind, for example, "2.7 NORTH 127.5 EAST".

Most people can picture the coast of Peru, but I must admit I'm a bit hazy about North Moluccan Sea. Where is  that, anyway?

You can find out quickly and simply, and in stunning detail, in Google Earth. Download and install Google Earth (15 megabytes) onto your computer. It's free. And sign up to receive the PTWC alerts by e-mail. They're free, too. Then wait for an alert message to show up in your mailbox.

Inside each alert you'll find data for these parameters:

ORIGIN TIME - 0540Z 26 JUL 2007
COORDINATES - 2.7 NORTH 127.5 EAST
DEPTH - 52 KM
LOCATION - NORTHERN MOLUCCA SEA
MAGNITUDE - 7.0

Now cut-and-paste the latitude and longitude coordinates "2.7 NORTH 127.5 EAST" into the search box in the upper left corner of the Google Earth screen, labeled "Fly To" in this screen shot. Then, delete characters so that "2.7 NORTH" becomes "2.7 N" and "127.5 EAST" becomes "127.5 E". No comma or other punctuation is needed. Then press the ENTER key.

Google Earth will take you to the exact location. It is extremely cool to watch the image of the earth spin to focus on the latitude and longitude you entered. If the view becomes too close for a useful perspective, click on the "-" icon in the navigation controls that appear in the upper right of the screen to zoom out as far as you want.

Latitude and longitude are specified in degrees, minutes and seconds, so the more specific the coordinates you enter, the more precise Google Earth will be. So if you enter the GPS coordinates 1 16 41.85 N 103 50 35.00 E, you'll see the exact location of my office in Singapore.

Note: as the August 15 earthquake off the coast of Peru (coordinates 13.5 S 76.7 W) demonstrates tragically, an earthquake can cause enormous destruction without causing a tsunami. So for earthquakes close to inhabited land masses, check other news sources after you receive a PTWC warning.

I thank geophysicist Brian Shiro at PTWC for his fast, helpful responses to my questions.

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Nathaniel Forbes

Nathaniel Forbes is the director of Forbes Calamity Prevention, a Singapore-based consulting firm providing business continuity, crisis management and emergency response advice and training to multinational companies, with a focus on companies with offices in Asia. The firm is 10 years old. FCP's current and past clients include Singapore Exchange Ltd, OCBC Bank, AXA Insurance, The Gillette Company, Siemens and ABN Amro Bank. A former President of the Singapore Computer Society’s Business Continuity Group, Nathaniel passed the DRII’s Certified Business Continuity Planner (CBCP) examination in 1997. He has lived, traveled or worked in Asia since 1973.