Seismic Energy Visualization

This visualization displays a map view and a dynamic force layout representing the seismic energy release from current and past earthquakes. The visualization was inspired by this video, and illustrates how the logarithmic moment magnitude scale distorts our thinking about earthquakes of different sizes.

D3 is used to parse earthquakes from a USGS JSON feed, which are animated as circles of varying size on a Leaflet slippy map. D3 is also used to create and update a force layout showing the relative energy release as earthquakes are added to the map. This is also a good example of how to trigger and interrupt transitions in D3.

The animation shows the order of earthquakes in the viewing area (not scaled by the actual time between earthquakes). The background map is a the ESRI Ocean Basemap, which has global bathymetry. Smaller (lower magnitude) earthquakes are only displayed for specific regions as determined by the USGS data feed.

See the live site here