As part of its monitoring activities, the ANSS includes a national Backbone network, the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC), the National Strong Motion Project, and 15 regional seismic networks operated by USGS and its partners.
When earthquakes strike, ANSS delivers real-time information, providing situational awareness for emergency-response personnel. In regions with sufficient seismic stations, that information includes –within minutes– a ShakeMap showing the distribution of potentially damaging ground shaking, information used to target post-earthquake response efforts. When fully implemented, ANSS will provide such dense station coverage for all at-risk urban areas. Information from ANSS is a key input to the USGS National Seismic Hazard Maps, which help communities in earthquake-prone regions develop safer building practices.
Project IDA is a global network of broadband seismometers operated by the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. IDA is an element of the IRIS / USGS Global Seismographic Network (GSN) financially supported by the US National Science Foundation and the Cecil and Ida Green Foundation for Earth Science. There are currently 41 broadband stations deployed worldwide.
The NEIC was transferred to Boulder, Colorado, in 1972 and made part of the U.S. Geological Survey in 1973. The NEIC was moved again in 1974 to its present location in Golden, Colorado.
The National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC), a part of the Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, is located in Golden, Colorado, 10 miles west of Denver. The NEIC has three main missions. First, the NEIC determines, as rapidly and as accurately as possible, the location and size of all significant earthquakes that occur worldwide. The NEIC disseminates this information immediately to concerned national and international agencies, scientists, critical facilities, and the general public. Second, the NEIC collects and provides to scientists and to the public an extensive seismic database that serves as a solid foundation for scientific research, principally through the operation of modern digital national and global seismograph networks and through cooperative international agreements. The NEIC is the national data center and archive for earthquake information. Third, the NEIC pursues an active research program to improve its ability to locate earthquakes and to understand the earthquake mechanism. These efforts are all aimed at mitigating the risks of earthquakes to mankind; and they are made possible by the fine international cooperation that has long characterized the science of seismology.
ORFEUS is the non-profit foundation to coordinate and promote digital, broadband seismology in the European-Mediterranean area.
EIDA is the European Integrated Data Archive infrastructure within ORFEUS to provide access to seismic waveform data in European archives.
The USGS monitors and reports on earthquakes, assesses earthquake impacts and hazards, and conducts targeted research on the causes and effects of earthquakes. We undertake these activities as part of the larger National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), a four-agency partnership established by Congress.