The fdsnws-event web service returns event (earthquake) information from catalogs originating from the NEIC and the ISC data centers. (Please read the DISCLAIMER statement below.)

Events may be selected based on location, time, catalog, contributor and internal identifiers. By default, events are retrieved from the NEIC PDE catalog for recent events and then the ISC catalog when it becomes available. These default results include only that catalog’s “primary origin” and “primary magnitude” for each event, they may optionally include all available magnitude estimates.

By default results are returned as XML in QuakeML format (schema), but may also be requested in text formats.

This service is an implementation of the FDSN web service specification version 1.

DISCLAIMER:

The IRIS offering of the fdsnws-event service is provided as a convenience to our users and serves as an internal catalog for some of our tools. As it is a collection of first-run bulletins from the NEIC and ISC, the results returned should be considered NON AUTHORITATIVE and NOT CURRENT for the purposes of seismic study. For this reason, we encourage users to make refined searches to the NEIC and ISC URLs provided below to get the most current, authoritative origin records on earthquakes of interest.

International Seismological Centre (ISC):
http://isc-mirror.iris.washington.edu/fdsnws/event/1/
http://www.isc.ac.uk/fdsnws/event/1/

United States Geological Survey (NEIC):
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/