USGS-Recorded Earthquakes

We receive information in real time from USGS on earthquakes occurring in the Australia / Pacific region. The latest event can be accessed here once it has been received from USGS :

Display latest USGS-recorded earthquake

We keep a copy ("mirror", >23/07/2007) of the details of earthquakes received from USGS. The list of all earthquakes is updated daily every 15 minutes. Click here to display it :

Display list of all earthquakes

USGS 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011


Once you have chosen the year and month, just click on the line you are interested in to see all the details of the earthquake.

Seismic Activity in the South Pacific

Two seismic activity maps are available for the South Pacific :
The first map shows all earthquakes occurring in the South Pacific since early 2007 as recorded by USGS. This map, produced using GMT, shows earthquakes as circles with diameters reflecting magnitude. It has clickable areas for enlarging the zone required :
  • Papua New Guinea
  • New Caledonia and Vanuatu
  • Fiji and Tonga
  • Wallis & Futuna (Horne Islands) and Samoa
  • Kermadec
  • New Zealand
REMINDER : this map only shows events recorded by the global network, ie generally with a relatively high magnitude (>4). Once you have enlarged a zone, you can return to the main map by holding down the Alt key and pressing the left arrow key (←).

Displaying the USGS Earthquake Map

The second map is of local and regional seismic activity. It shows events recorded by our stations (IRD velocimetric stations and RAP accelerometric stations) since 2007 (currently being updated). With regard to events also recorded by USGS, pinpointing may vary depending on earthquake locations and the stations that took part in detecting them.

WARNING : as we are currently working on velocity models, THIS MAP IS ONLY PROVIDED FOR THE SAKE OF ILLUSTRATION. An extra station will help improve seismic event locating. For the time being, we are unable to determine magnitude or mechanism in the event focus. These will appear in the meantime as single-size circles. Once you have enlarged a zone, you can return to the main map by holding down the Alt key and pressing the left arrow key (←).

Displaying the Local and Regional Seismic Activity Map

Access to Seismological and Accelerometric Data

New Caledonian Seismology Network Data

New Caledonia’s seismology network data are public and can be accessed in real time as a SeedLink stream :
  • Either channel (SISMO broadband and accelerometric data) can be accessed as required with two samples :
    20 Hz (BHZ/BHN/BHE, and BNZ/BNN/BNE respectively),
    and 100 Hz (HHZ/HHN/HHE, and HNZ/HNN/HNE respectively);
  • The New Caledonian network bears the worldwide reference ND (NC was not available);
  • The SeedLink server is rtserve.ird.nc, on port 18000.
  • The available stations are ONTNC, KOUNC, OUENC, PINNC, MARNC, YATNC. Unfortunately LIFNC has been closed in November 2018.
For example, to obtain the Lifou Station stream, specify ND, LIFNC, the channel required, eg HHZ.. If the SeedLink client is slinktool, the command syntax is similar to :

[sysop@seiscomp ND]$ slinktool -S "ND_LIFNC:HHZ.D" -v rtserve.ird.nc:18000 slinktool
version: 4.1b-sc3 [rtserve.ird.nc:18000] network socket opened
[rtserve.ird.nc:18000] connected to: SeedLink v3.1 (2010.344) [rtserve.ird.nc:18000]
organization: IRD [ND_LIFNC] requesting next available data [rtserve.ird.nc:18000] 1 station(s) accepted
2011.095.10:54:47.1, seq 13394451, Received Data blockette
2011.095.10:54:48.1, seq 13394456, Received Data blockette
...

Our data is accessible via Seisweb, a single Seisan-based consulting, downloading and processing interface. Once the Java applet is launched, simply choose the appropriate database in the applet scroll-down menu (top left).

Launch the Java applet (if the applet does not display, type: http://seisan.ird.nc/):
  • http://seisan.ird.nc/
  • http://seisan.ird.nc/
NB: This could take some time!

The Java environment must be installed on your computer. If not, you can obtain it here.

Seisweb provides access to our current accelerometric and velocimetric data. It also provides access to Cavascope data as they are gradually integrated into our database. Please be patient if the data you are interested in are not yet available!

Data availability: cf seismology bulletins.

New Caledonian RAP data, like all other RAP data, are available on the RAP central site :
  • 1995-2006 RAP data
  • 2007 RAP data