Please send us feedback! To help us meet our goal of making our products more effective, we'd like to hear about what you found useful about these products and their presentation, and any suggestions for improving them.  Please do so by sending email to Joan Gomberg.

ShakeMaps

What are they?

ShakeMaps display earthquake-generated shaking intensities (and likely damage) within minutes, to guide your response.


Real earthquake ShakeMaps are derived automatically using sensors deployed regionally. Scenario ShakeMaps for hypothetical earthquakes are derived  from computer-models.


More information about ShakeMaps may be found on the original USGS ShakeMap webpage


2012 Evergreen Earthquake Exercise ShakeMaps


M6.7 Seattle
M5.7 Darrington-Devils Mtn
M7.4 South Whidbey Island
M7.1 Tacoma
M7.2 Olympia-Nisqually
M6.7 Seattle Fault scenario ShakeMap
M5.7 Darrington-Devils Mtn scenario ShakeMap
M7.4 South Whidbey Island scenario ShakeMap
M7.1 Tacoma Fault scenario ShakeMap
Olympia-Nisqually scenario ShakeMap
intensity scale
White polygons outline the surface-projection of the fault that breaks during each scenario earthquake.  Faults are planar surfaces that dip at some angle relative to the surface, so more vertically-dipping fault traces appear skinnier.  The M7.2 Olympia-Nisqually epicenter is shown instead (star) because the earthquake occurs on an unknown fault.



  
Earthquake Impact Pages -
Prototype for a Tacoma Fault Scenario

What are they?
Earthquake Impact Pages summarize the significance of an earthquake in terms 'Alert' response levels
;  no (green), local/regional (yellow), national (orange), or international (red) level response needed.  These levels are based on total shaking-related economic losses expected for impacted structures and their contents and non-structural damage and service disruptions, but do not include losses due to secondary earthquake affects like fire, tsunamis, etc.   Losses are estimated using the ShakeMap shaking intensities, historical and modern data about losses in past earthquakes associated with each intensity level, economic assets, and the number of people exposed to each intensity.  To derive these estimates quickly and uniformly, instead of using databases of building and facilities inventories and vulnerabilities (which don't exist in many places) to measure economic assets, more readily available data on country or region-specific market values of goods and services (the Gross Domestic Product) are used instead as proxies.
alert levels > 1 billion$

100 million to 1 billion $

1 to 100 million $

< 1 million $

Earthquake Impact Pages show the total population in the mapped area exposed to each shaking intensity level, using the ShakeMap intensity scale (same scale as in section above).
population exposure
Earthquake Impact Pages also show the distribution of economic loss among the most affected counties and cities, in map and table formats. 
Tacoma Scenario ShakeMap
cities exposure table
The estimated aggregate losses in each county are plotted on top of the ShakeMap, with the 10 most-impacted cities with >10,000 people noted. A table lists each city on the map with its population and the shaking intensity it experiences noted by its numeric value and corresponding color.
 
2012 Evergreen Earthquake Exercise Example Earthquake Impact
Page
An example
Earthquake Impact Page for the M7.1 Tacoma Fault earthquake scenario may be viewed (right mouse button) or downloaded (left mouse button) by clicking on this link