Many of the earthquake hot spots in the world do not necessarily have the largest quakes but they do have the most. These are smaller earthquakes of magnitudes of 1 or 2 perhaps and they occur many times daily. It show that the earth's crust under these places is stressed and almost constantly on the move. I have developed maps to show how these smaller earthquake 'swarms' develop over time in the earthquake hot spots of the world.

Depending on whether the area is a subduction zone or a constructive zone, the tectonic plates are forced together, one plate moving beneath the other or are forced apart from one another as new molten lava cools and forms new land.

It is not difficult to find earthquake hot spots shown on the various maps dotted around the internet but most of these show the recent larger earthquakes all on one map. They show the recent activity for the past 7 (or sometimes 30) days and the size of the earthquakes that occurred there. Since they are all on one map, this is great to see the overall distribution and size of recent earthquakes. USGS official earthquake site.

Rather like watching a motor race for the crashes, I feel there is something of a fascination for us all in earthquake watching. Perhaps we do it because we are concerned that the area in which we live will not be involved in an earthquake. Maybe we do it because we have friends, family or even ourslves who live in such an area. Whatever the reason, there is a general interest in how our Earth moves and shakes itself.

It struck me the other day that we do not get to see the historical way in which earthquakes build in an area. Mainly this is because as I have said, many of the quakes are so small they are not of particular intrest in themselves, but I believe that watching these patterns, how the small quakes build up over a period of time, is the key to developing an intimate knowledge of the earths crust in a particular area.

This kind of detailed research is done in the universities and maybe they have all kinds of maps and statistics to show what the Earth's body is doing at any particular time, but I could not find any maps that showed the 'swarms' of smaller earthquakes which happen on a daily basis and which are important for the public to see if they are interested.

So, I decided to produce such a map where historical data can be swithced on or off according to certain timescales. In my maps I have decided to make these timescales relevant to the last occurrance of an earthquake. There are overlays for the previous 24 hours, 24hours-7days, 8-14days, 15-30days, and 31-60 days.

Currently there are only about 20 top earthquake hot spots available on the website as maps, but I have started to collect the data from USGS since the end of January 2009, so if you require maps for a different area, I can produce one fairly easily. Leave me a comment here.

Visit the website and see how the earthquakes develop over a period of time on the Top Earthquake Hot Spot Maps of the World.

If you like the maps and think it is a good idea, please bookmark the site, and tell your friends about it too. Thanks.