The USGS earthquake website is a great resource (earthquake.usgs.gov) but they do not have images that are useful for Keyhole. I've written them an email. If you agree with me that this would be useful, copy this message to them.
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Dear USGS Earthquake Hazards Program Webmasters,

Can you provide a cylindrical projection, JPG formatted map of current global earthquakes?

I use a program called Keyhole (www.keyhole.com) to show my students high resolution images of geological features and related information. The program has the ability to automatically download and overlay JPG formatted cylindrical projection maps onto the globe. For example, it is possible to overlay and display current satellite weather maps.

If you can create a page with the properly formatted JPG map, it would make it possible for me to show current earthquakes in the context of other geological features and plate movements. A similarly formatted map of historical earthquakes with color-coded depths would also be
very useful.

The JPG image should not have a white border or key.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Geo, I checked out the usgs site, and found a page here
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/large_usa.html
that contains date, magnitude, lat, and longitude. A little fiddling with Excel on this data would allow you to produce a KML file directly, and post lables, and comments direcly on the Keyhole imagery. Is your class able to take on a project like that? If you have a couple of geeks, they could likely handle it.

I am a little busy this week, but it is not hard. If you are interested in doing it with the class, drop me a line, I will help out.

Thanks Periboob,

I learn something new every day. I didn't realize that I could generate a KML file myself, and don't need the .JPG image. I'll try this myself first as a little project/learning opportunity.

This would not be an appropriate project for my students in Earth Science, but it would be great for attendees to my workshop on Keyhole in the classroom!

Wow, this is a bigger project than I anticipated. I have to parse the HTML from the site first, to get the data. Then I've got to find or create a set of icons showing depth and magnitude (probably 8 sizes in 3 colors minimum, meaning 24 icons), then I've got to generate the KML. I prefer the list at All Earthquake List for World but I'm concerned that this would be too many spots on the map. Finally, I imagine I'd have to build all this into Java or Shockwave so that when I refresh by calling up the page from Keyhole, it goes to work getting the latest data and creating the new KML file.

Is there an easier way that I'm not aware of? Remember, I'm not using the Pro version of Keyhole ... I assume that makes this a snap to do.

I received very helpful replies from Bob Simpson and Scott Haefner at USGS, and they've given me permission to post there messages here:
---Hi Charlie,

Thanks for your email. Keyhole sounds pretty interesting, although I use a Mac myself, which Keyhole doesn't support at the moment.

The USGS 7-day recenteqs catalog is available in compressed XML form at:

earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/xml/merged_catalog.xml.gz

It should contain all the earthquakes visible on the recenteqs maps at
any given time. Perhaps it would be an interesting project for one of
your students to write a script to grab this catalog, project the
earthquakes, and plot them on a jpg image. The GMT program, as one
possibility, makes projections of various types and produces postscript
output maps which could be converted to jpg:

http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/

You can also find extensive catalogs of historic events at some of the
online data centers like:

http://quake.geo.berkeley.edu/ncedc/

Hopes this helps! Thanks again for your message.

Best regards,
Bob Simpson
USGS, Earthquake Hazards Program
Menlo Park, CA
-------------------------------
Sure, I don't mind if you post my message. But I have alternate URLs for
the CSV files since the previous URL resolves to a Mac sitting on my
office floor. I am now generating the CSV files on our public web site
as well:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/catalogs/eqs1hour-M1.txt
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/catalogs/eqs1day-M1.txt
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/catalogs/eqs7day-M1.txt

Now that I've looked more closely at KML (after reading your message), I
think that it would be useful for USGS to produce KML files of real-time
eqs as well. But, I can't find any KML documentation on keyhole.com or
by searching in Google. Can you point me to any docs?

Good luck, sounds like a fun project for you and the kids.

Scott

Charles Abrams wrote:
> Scott and Robert,
>
> Thank you both very much for your prompt and thoughtful replies. I
> suspected there was an easy solution with the PRO version of Keyhole...
> but my school is unable to afford this version. We don't need all those
> features anyway. In the end it should not be too difficult to write a
> script that converts your csv format into Keyhole Markup Language (kml).
>
> Scott, may I post your reply along with Robert's (who has already given
> permission) at the Keyhole bbs (bbs.keyhole.com)?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Charlie Abrams

Here is a partial answer to my own and Scott's question from the previous email. I created a dummy KML file which should be easy to hack, appended below my suggestions for hacking it:

1. Choose the proper icon by using one of the four sets of placemarks in the dummy file as the template. (star circle, square dot, circle dot, red dot) Custom icons must be web available.... so down the line, it should be possible to duplicate the USGS pattern.

2. Change the values inside the <coordinates> tag to Lon, Lat, 0. The last is altitude, and if you put the depth of the quake it will hide the icon under the Earth (!!!)

3. Change the values inside <description> tag to include time, date, any other stuff ("Data generated by USGS" with a url, etc.) You can also put this tag right after the <folder> tag so it's not repeated with each placemark.

Change the value inside <name> tag to include a short name - perhaps date & time in short format.

The <view> tag is pointing to North America, so should be identical for all counterminious US earthquakes.
----------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Folder>
<name>Recent Earthquakes</name>
<visibility>1</visibility>

<Placemark>
<description>star circle description</description>
<name>Star circle</name>
<View>
<longitude>-96.92021392932456</longitude>
<latitude>37.10262761548895</latitude>
<range>3790747.755798895</range>
<tilt>-1.964984889777795e-015</tilt>
<heading>-0.4515375164811619</heading>
</View>
<visibility>1</visibility>
<styleUrl>root://styleMaps#default?iconId=0x307</styleUrl>
<Style>
<icon>root://icons/bitmap-4.png?
x=96&y=0&w=32&h=32</icon>
</Style>
<Point>
<coordinates>-117.5601538032835,34.87628752364301,0</coordinates>
</Point>
</Placemark>

<Placemark>
<description>square dot description</description>
<name>Square dot</name>
<View>
<longitude>-96.92021392932456</longitude>
<latitude>37.10262761548896</latitude>
<range>3790747.755798895</range>
<tilt>1.703946374001032e-014</tilt>
<heading>-0.4515375164811738</heading>
</View>
<visibility>1</visibility>
<styleUrl>root://styleMaps#default?iconId=0x307</styleUrl>
<Style>
<icon>root://icons/bitmap-4.png?
x=0&y=0&w=32&h=32</icon>
</Style>
<Point>
<coordinates>-118.6033524688671,35.87684230120406,0</coordinates>
</Point>
</Placemark>

<Placemark>
<description>Circle dot description</description>
<name>Circle dot</name>
<View>
<longitude>-96.4999999999999</longitude>
<latitude>39.16244754711845</latitude>
<range>3790747.755798895</range>
<tilt>4.016247510495637e-014</tilt>
<heading>-1.045665819288302e-014</heading>
</View>
<visibility>1</visibility>
<styleUrl>root://styleMaps#default?iconId=0x307</styleUrl>
<Style>
<icon>root://icons/bitmap-4.png?
x=32&y=0&w=32&h=32</icon>
</Style>
<Point>
<coordinates>-
120.1765605535012,36.9451898592459,1.414646177977375e-009</coordinates>
</Point>
</Placemark>

<Placemark>
<description>Red dot description</description>
<name>Red dot</name>
<View>
<longitude>-96.4999999999999</longitude>
<latitude>39.16244754711845</latitude>
<range>3790747.755798895</range>
<tilt>4.016247510495637e-014</tilt>
<heading>-1.045665819288302e-014</heading>
</View>
<visibility>1</visibility>
<styleUrl>root://styleMaps#default?iconId=0x307</styleUrl>
<Style>
<icon>root://icons/bitmap-3.png?
x=160&y=0&w=32&h=32</icon>
</Style>
<Point>
<coordinates>-120.9384257887617,38.20353057496556,-
7.073230889886874e-010</coordinates>
</Point>
</Placemark>

</Folder>

Geo, I took 3 years from the ANSS data at the geo berkley web site, and ratherr quickly came up with this file. Take a look, and see what it needs.

-----
well, rats, what happened to the pushpins? They were there a minute ago. Oh, well, it is getting late--I will try again tomorrow. are the pushpins back now?

Periboob,

This is GREAT! I've also got Scott Haefner at USGS working on LIVE updatable earthquake maps, and he's made some progress that I'm about to post.

Scott Haefner at USGS has been working on a kml formatted verison of their live earthquake data. I've created a network kml file that points to his kml file, so it is updated - just like the webcam network file. Scott is working on a better kml version, so icon size represents earthquake magnitude... I'll post that if it goes live.

Excellant stuff, geo. And way to go outsourcing this. Hat's off to Mr. Haefner, too. I'm betting that Keyhole will become a part of the USGS's must have info tools.