Overview
Requests pull seismic records refreshed hourly from the United States Geological Survey. The endpoint outputs events from the previous hour with magnitudes, coordinates, and tsunami indicators, leaving alert levels null if unassigned. It also provides rolling 24-hour counts and peak magnitudes, while paid plans add the 24-hour average magnitude.
Live Test Live Earthquake Data Source →
Formula
One function covers the whole catalog: the first argument names the source, the rest are its inputs, and the "field" pair says which single value lands in the cell. Formulas covers the grammar that applies to all of them.
=VERVE("earthquake", "field", "earthquakes_LastUpdated")=VERVE.CALL("earthquake", "field", "earthquakes_LastUpdated")What lands in your sheet
The "field" pair is what makes the formula resolve to one cell. Its value is a dot-path from the table below, so swapping it is how you pull a different value — one formula per column.
Seeing everything at once
Drop the "field" pair and the formula returns the whole response instead: two columns, field name on the left and value on the right, spilling from the cell you typed in.
=VERVE("earthquake")=VERVE.CALL("earthquake")The second row's table would land on top of the first's, and every cell after the first reads #REF! (#SPILL! in Excel). Keep one per sheet, or name a field, and leave the cells below and to the right empty.
Response fields
Paths are relative to data. Each one is exactly what the "field" pair accepts, so swapping it is how you pull a different value into a cell. On a plan without a Premium field the cell reads #PREMIUM(field) rather than a value, so a locked field never looks like a real answer.
| Use as "field" | Type | Example cell value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
earthquakes_LastUpdated | string | 2026-02-18T12:00:00.000Z | Timestamp of when the underlying earthquake data was last refreshed from USGS |
earthquakes_LastHour | number | 9 | Number of earthquakes recorded in the past hour |
count24h | number | 187 | Total earthquake count in the past 24 hours |
largestMagnitude24h | number | 5.2 | Largest earthquake magnitude recorded in the past 24 hours |
avgMagnitude24hPremium | number | 1.84 | Average earthquake magnitude across the past 24 hours |
earthquakes | array[2] | Earthquakes recorded in the past hour | |
earthquakes.0.mag | number | 3.4 | Magnitude of the earthquake |
earthquakes.0.place | string | 153 km SSW of Channel Islands Beach, California | Human-readable description of the epicenter's location |
earthquakes.0.time | number | 1765921110756 | Unix timestamp, in milliseconds, of when the earthquake occurred |
earthquakes.0.felt | number | 1 | Number of 'felt' reports submitted by the public for this event; absent when none were submitted |
earthquakes.0.cdi | number | 2.2 | Maximum reported intensity of the event from citizen 'Did You Feel It?' reports |
earthquakes.0.mmi | number | 2.538 | Maximum estimated instrumental intensity of the event |
earthquakes.0.status | string | reviewed | Review status of the event: 'automatic' if produced by an automatic system, 'reviewed' if a human seismologist verified it |
earthquakes.0.tsunami | number | 0 | Whether a tsunami warning was associated with this event (1) or not (0) |
earthquakes.0.sig | number | 178 | A number describing how significant the event is, based on magnitude, felt reports, and other factors; larger numbers indicate a more significant event |
earthquakes.0.net | string | us | ID of the seismic network that originally authored the event |
earthquakes.0.types | string | ,dyfi,nearby-cities,origin,phase-data,scitech-link,shakemap, | Comma-separated list of product types associated with this event |
earthquakes.0.nst | number | 36 | Number of seismic stations used to determine the earthquake's location |
earthquakes.0.dmin | number | 0.479 | Horizontal distance, in degrees, from the epicenter to the nearest reporting station |
earthquakes.0.rms | number | 0.65 | Root-mean-square travel time residual of the seismic stations used to locate the event, in seconds |
earthquakes.0.gap | number | 247 | Largest azimuthal gap, in degrees, between adjacent reporting stations |
earthquakes.0.magType | string | ml | Method or algorithm used to calculate the reported magnitude |
earthquakes.0.type | string | earthquake | Type of seismic event, e.g. earthquake or quarry blast |
earthquakes.0.title | string | M 3.4 - 153 km SSW of Channel Islands Beach, California | Formatted summary combining the magnitude and place, e.g. 'M 2.5 - 3 km ESE of Camarillo, CA' |
earthquakes.0.coordinates | array | [-119.931,32.9103] | Epicenter location as [longitude, latitude] |
When a cell doesn't fill
A failed lookup returns readable text starting with #ERR rather than a spreadsheet error, because Excel cannot show a custom message on a real error — you would get a bare #VALUE! with no reason. The trade-off is that IFERROR() will not catch it; test with LEFT(cell, 4) = "#ERR" instead. Error handling covers the rest.
| Cell reads | What happened |
|---|---|
#ERR Not connected | No API key saved. Open the side panel and connect your account. |
#ERR Replace <name> with a cell or value | A preview formula was copied as-is. Swap the placeholder for a cell reference. |
#ERR No "x" in earthquake | An option name this source does not take. The message lists the ones it does. |
#ERR No data point "…" | The "field" path is not in the response. Check it against the table above. |
#PREMIUM(field) | The field exists but your plan does not include it. |
#ERR Out of credits | The cycle's credits are spent. Usage resets on your billing date. |
Before the formula works
The add-in reads the API key you saved once in the side panel — the key never goes in the formula, so a shared sheet does not leak it and a collaborator without access simply sees the last calculated values.
- Install the add-in for Google Sheets or Excel.
- Open the side panel and sign in, or paste a key from your dashboard.
- Type the formula above into any cell.
Use cases
- Emergency Alerting Systems
- When a tremor occurs, disaster response platforms trigger push alerts based on magnitude, epicenter coordinates, and tsunami warning indicators.
- Travel Safety Trackers
- Trip planning apps display nearby seismic activity and citizen felt reports along travel routes to warn tourists of active tremors.
- Infrastructure Risk Monitoring
- To protect bridges and pipelines, civil engineering teams log seismic intensity metrics and epicenter proximity to schedule structural safety inspections.
- Geoscience Educational Maps
- Interactive classroom dashboards map live earthquake epicenters with magnitude summaries and felt reports straight from USGS records.
Other ways to use Live Earthquake Data
Set up Live Earthquake Data on VerveSheets, or reach the same source a different way. Your VerveSheets account and credits work on all of them — one key, one balance.
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