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Latest Earthquakes: Feeds & Data

RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication” (sometimes called Rich Site Summary), has been adopted by news services, weblogs, and other online information services to send content to subscribers. After subscribing to an RSS feed, you will be notified when new content is available without having to visit the web site.

Typically, syndication services send out a headline/summary with a link the full story. The USGS earthquake RSS feed contains the magnitude, location, date/time, and a link to the full USGS report for each event.

How to Subscribe

You will need to download and install an RSS reader, or use a web-based service like Bloglines. Then, you copy and paste the URL of the news feed (e.g. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/catalogs/eqs1day-M2.5.xml) into the viewer's “subscribe” dialogue).

Example RSS viewers include:

Additional Readers and Extensions:

  • Firefox has a feature called Live Bookmarks that lets you subscribe to an RSS feed within the browser.
  • For even more flexibility, you can install a Firefox extension called Sage to read and manage RSS feeds.
  • A Firefox plugin named eQuake Alert lists the latest event near the bottom of the browser window and will optionally shake your browser window when a new event appears.
  • Bloglines is a free, web-based service for managing news feeds. There is no need to download or install software, and you can access your feeds from any computer connected to the Internet.