Earthquake Monitor

Earthquake Monitor is a customizable widget that shows an overview of earthquakes around the world from the U.S. Geological Surveys data. You can show this in a widget (or multiple widgets) or use the shortcode [eqmonitor]. All requests can be cached so it won’t slow down your site.

Arbitrary section

• The display format field is now a customizable field. You determine how the widget displays the links within the ‘limits’ of this widget.
• You are allowed to use HTML tags in the display format field.
• If you make the Location linkable it will link to the USGS website providing detailed information about the quake.
• The date format is compatible with the date() function of PHP. See date for more information.
• According to the USGV website the feeds for the past hour,day and 7 days are updated every 5 minutes. The 30 day feeds are updated every 15 minutes.
• Don’t configure the cache timer too low. It will retrieve a fresh feed from an external website when the site loads. This can impact your loading times. I recommend 3600 seconds (1 hour)

Some examples to show you how the template variables work

Aprox. {hrtime} ago an earthquake with the {mag} struck {locreg} (Time {time}) . The exact latitude = {lat} and the longitude = {long}. The quake was measured at {depth_m} km depth.

would be parsed into

Aprox. 2 hours ago an earthquake with the M 0.4 struck Northern California (Time Thu 21:33:17 (UTC)) . The exact latitude = 38.8402 and the longitude = -122.8250. The quake was measured at 2.10 km depth.

All earthquakes used by the widget are placed in this HTML frame

<ul>
<li>Earthquake text 1</li>
<li>Earthquake text 2</li>
</ul>

Only earthquakes using the shortcode [eqmonitor] can optionally be placed in ordered lists.

<ol>
<li>Earthquake text 1</li>
<li>Earthquake text 2</li>
</ol>

PAGER (Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response) background

PAGER (Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response) is an automated system that produces content concerning the impact of significant earthquakes around the world, informing emergency responders, government and aid agencies, and the media of the scope of the potential disaster.
PAGER results are generally available within 30 minutes of a significant earthquake, shortly after the determination of its location and magnitude. However, information on the extent of shaking will be uncertain in the minutes and hours following an earthquake and typically improves as additional sensor data and reported intensities are acquired and incorporated into models of the earthquake’s source.

Corresponding fatality thresholds for yellow, orange, and red alert levels are 1, 100, and 1,000, respectively. For damage impact, yellow, orange, and red thresholds are triggered by estimated losses reaching $1 million, $100 million, and $1 billion respectively.

When the PAGER information is not known, the color : GREY will be used as default.

For more info about PAGER see : [pager] (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/pager/)

Look and feel of the colors and/or bullets can be adjusted in the CSS file located in the /css folder of this plugin.

Icon / Images

The Tsunami Icon can be changed. It is locatet at /wp-content/plugins/earthquakemonitor/images/tsunami.png
The CSS stylesheet sets the size of this image. Currently it’s 14px by 14px. ( /wp-content/plugins/earthquakemonitor/css/style.css )

Shortcode examples and parameters

Example :

[eqmonitor id="unique1" cachetimer="3600" numberedlist="true" showmax="10" showlink="false" minmagnitude="7" showdaysback="190"]

Important! Each shortcode entry must have it’s own unique code (max 21 chars) . If no unique ID is provided the feed will not cache properly.
Shows a numbered list with max. 10 results without links to the USGS website for more details, with a min. magnitude of 7 from the last 190 days. Tsunami icons will be shown as if unset it will follow the defaults. Results will be cached for 3600 seconds.

This are all parameters that can be used :

showdaysback = Show events till x days ago. (default = 30) (max = 365)
showmax = Show max. results (default = 5) (max = 50)
minmagnitude = Min. Magnitute to show (default = 5) (min = -1 , max = 10)
showlink = Results will be links to USGS (default = true)
showpager = Show pager results (yellow, green , red) colors. (default = true)
showtsunami = If a major event was in an oceanic region, show a little tsunami icon. (default = true)
numberedlist = Use a numbered list instead of unnumbered (default = false)
cachetimer = Numbers of seconds results are cached (default = 3600)
id = Unique ID (max 21 chars) for shortcode. Only a-Z and 0-9 allowed. No special chars.