Twitter Earthquake Monitor

Scientists have many high-tech methods for tracking and predicting earthquakes, but one of the simplest and most effective ways recently has been using twitter posts to monitor for earthquake activity.

Because so many millions of people are posting their immediate reaction to whatever happens around them, researchers can get almost instantaneous notification of seismic activity by tracking the latest tweets. In fact the United States Geological Survey found that twitter often beat out their own tracking methods in spreading the first word about a pending earthquake. They are hoping to expand the study by learning the words associated with an earthquake in other languages. And here I thought twitter was only useful to track outbreaks of terrible reality television.

Twitter Earthquake Monitor
msnbc

Earthquake experts have found a new way to "follow" earthquakes in real-time: Twitter. Scientists at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) recently noticed that users of the micro-blogging service in seismically active areas of the world were quick to note and report any temblors and movements of the Earth that they felt...

Twitter Earthquake Monitor