Earthquake stats graphs

Check earthquake frequency worldwide by time and magnitude, as well as the distribution of magnitude classes and seismic energy over time and by magnitude.
If you wonder whether quake activity has recently been on the increase or decrease, or is at normal levels, you can check our Quake-O-Meter tool, with an analysis of quake occurrence compared to statistical averages, both world-wide, or for a specific country or area you can define and lookup yourself.
The graphics on this page are dynamic and continuously updated.
You can use them for your own website if you embed the original pictures and add a link to this page.

Magnitude vs time | Number of quakes per magnitude

1. Number of quakes per day

Past 24 hours:

embed this
Past 30 days:

embed this
Past 90 days:

embed this

2. Number of events and energy released by magnitude

Past 24 hours:

embed this
Past 7 days:

embed this
Past 30 days:

embed this

The histograms show some interesting facts:
- Quake frequency decreases exponentially with magnitude, or vice versa: small earthquakes are MUCH more frequent than larger ones. The apparent decrease of very small earthquakes towards lower magnitude is because tiny quakes (below magnitudes 3 or so) are only being registered in a few places of the world, but in reality occur in their thousands every day.
- Even though smaller quakes are much more frequent, they release much less energy combined than a single large one.
The reason is that earthquake energy increases by a factor of 30 for each magnitude step: for example, a magnitude 6 earthquake contains as much energy as 30 magnitude 5 quakes!

3. Magnitude and energy released over time

Past 24 hours:

embed this
Past 7 days:

embed this
Past 30 days:

embed this