The Seismicity Catalog CD-ROM Collection, 1996

A two-CDROM compilation of seismicity catalogs from NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center and U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center is available online. The two-volume CD-ROM collection contains data on over four million earthquakes dating from 2100 B.C. to 1995 A.D. The data include information on epicentral time of origin, location, magnitudes, depth and other earthquake-related parameters.

Three types of catalogs are included on the CDs: local (containing data from single stations or local networks); regional (containing data from regional networks, such as CALNET in central California) and teleseismic (containing data from around the world). Records have been contributed from various worldwide industrial, academic, governmental, and private sources. The CDs also contain auxiliary data bases (such as world stress, tsunami, volcanic, fault parameters, etc.) which aid in earthquake investigations.

• Volume 1 contains events for United States, Central America, Canada, the Caribbean, Decade of North American Geology Project (DNAG), Mexico, and other Supplemental Algorithms and Catalogs.
• Volume 2 contains events for Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, Oceania, South America, and Global Catalogs.

Updates to the Seismicity CDs and additional seismicity data can be obtained from:

• National Earthquake Information Center, USGS
• Seismosurfing the Internet for Earthquake Data

Data Retrieval and Documentation

Data can be accessed through the GeoVu data access and visualization software included on the CDs. This software allows visualization of pre-computed histograms as well as reformatting of data files to a format specified by the user. Many of the more popular data bases are available in several different formats so the user will not have to reformat large data bases. Files can be formatted for use on IBM PCs, Macs, or UNIX machines. Format information, data dictionary and statistical information are also included. A bibliography of earthquake-related materials at NCEI and the Summary of Earthquake Data Base (KGRD-21) are included on the CD-ROM.