About & methodology
NatureBlogger is a publication about the natural world. This page explains what we publish, exactly where the live data comes from, how often it updates and what it cannot tell you.
What NatureBlogger does
The site has two separate layers, and they are kept apart on purpose.
- Live trackers. The earthquake, volcano and tsunami pages, and the Explore Earth map, are generated from official machine-readable feeds. No person types in the facts and no AI system writes or supplies them. If a feed is unavailable, the page keeps the last good data and shows when it was collected.
- Stories. The stories are slower, researched explanations written from the scientific literature and reviewed separately before publication. They explain the world; they never supply live figures.
Where the live data comes from
Every record on the trackers comes from one of these sources and links back to it. We normalise the format (for example, times in UTC) but do not alter the values.
Earthquakes
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earthquake Hazards Program. Summary feed of magnitude 4.5+ earthquakes, past 7 days.
Covers: Worldwide, M4.5 and above only.
Update: Collected once a day.
Volcanoes
USGS Volcano Hazards Program (Hazard Notification System, HANS). Elevated volcanoes, plus the HANS volcano registry for map positions.
Covers: Volcanoes monitored by US observatories only.
Update: Collected once a day.
Tsunami messages
NOAA National Tsunami Warning Center and Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (tsunami.gov). Public Atom and CAP product feeds.
Covers: Products from these two NOAA centres only.
Update: Checked about every 30 minutes.
Observed tsunamis
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Global Historical Tsunami Database.
Covers: Probable and definite events, current and previous calendar year only.
Update: Checked once a day.
The map uses public-domain Natural Earth coastlines and loads no third-party map tiles. Volcano positions come from the USGS HANS registry.
How often it updates
Collection is automated. Earthquakes and volcanoes are collected once a day (scheduled for about 09:00 UTC); tsunami messages are checked about every 30 minutes and NCEI observed tsunamis once a day. Scheduled jobs can run late, and the site is rebuilt after collection, so what you see can lag the source by hours.
Each page states when its data was collected. Right now:
- Earthquakes: collected 2026-10-23 14:04 UTC.
- Elevated volcanoes: collected 2026-10-23 14:04 UTC.
- Tsunami messages: last checked 2026-10-23 23:23 UTC.
- Observed tsunamis: retrieved 2026-10-17 13:10 UTC.
Pages that count “today” or “this week” measure from the collection time, not from your clock, and warn when the data is more than a day old.
What it does not cover
- This is not an emergency alert service. Collection is periodic, not real time. For warnings, follow your local authorities and official channels such as tsunami.gov (opens in new tab).
- Earthquakes are M4.5 and above only. Smaller earthquakes are frequent and are not in the feed we collect. Values are preliminary and USGS may revise them; each record links to the authoritative USGS page. Records older than the latest seven days are whatever we have collected since 2026-09-08, not a complete archive.
- Volcanoes are US-monitored only. The volcano page cannot show eruptions elsewhere in the world, including Toba. An elevated alert level is not the same as an eruption in progress. The list is the latest successful USGS snapshot of elevated volcanoes, so a volcano USGS returns to normal drops off. If a collection fails, the previous list stays up with its own collection time shown, so check that time and the linked USGS notice.
- Tsunami information comes from two NOAA centres. It is not global and does not include other countries' warning services. A tsunami message is not evidence that a tsunami happened; observed tsunamis come from a different, reviewed catalogue; and the USGS “tsunami flag” on an earthquake is not a warning. We do not link earthquakes to tsunami messages by guessing from time or place.
- Nothing else is covered yet. There is no wildfire, asteroid or cyclone data on the site.
How we word things
- We keep each source's own labels (for example NOAA's warning, advisory, watch or information statement) and never upgrade or downgrade them.
- We never fill in a value a source did not provide; missing information is shown as missing.
- If a source's format changes in a way we cannot read safely, collection fails rather than guessing, and the previous data stays up with its real timestamp.
- Stories state what is established, what is inferred and what is disputed.