Tips for Searches

On the Search Page:
  1. The Station Identifier field covers the location, location_auxiliary, address, and owner's number fields (e.g. if you type in 152, the search will return stations with addresses or station numbers that contain that string)
  2. To get a list of just the earthquakes or stations that meet your criteria, select the 'Return earthquake information only' or 'Return station information only' buttons, respectively. These produce lists of earthquakes and stations with the links to the individual pages for those stations or earthquakes. Only the default 'Return earthquake, station, and accelerogram information' returns the full information with links to a map, acceleration and response spectra plots and download buttons.
  3. If the result of your search is too large, you will only receive a list of stations with their latitude, longitude and hypocentral distance from the earthquakes they record. Because stations may record more than one earthquake, they may appear more than once in this list if your query produces multiple earthquakes.
  4. If you enter a value in a field that does not occur for all traces (e.g. closest distance to the fault or earthquake mechanism), no records that are missing that field in the database will be displayed.
On the Advanced Search page:
  1. Select each field on which you want data, not just the ones on which you will be entering search parameters.
  2. On the next page, enter values in the fields on which to select data. You do not need to enter both maximum and minimum - you may enter just maximum or just minimum on numerical fields if that's what you want.
Text fields:
  1. Don't use quotation marks or other punctuation in text fields
  2. Don't use sql commands in the text fields
  3. Entries are case-insensitive, so you may enter in lower or upper case.
  4. Use the shortest string possible that distinguishes your search
  5. String searches look for the entire string you list, not for individual words or phrases in the text fields
  6. Common abbreviations:
    • Bldg, Govt for building and government
    • Ave, Ln, St, Rd, Hwy for avenue, lane, street, road and highway
Numeric fields:
  1. Numbers are expressed in U.S. format e.g. 1,000 for one thousand
  2. Enter reasonable values in fields. Most magnitude values except seismic moment are small, real numbers. Vertical and horizontal orientations are positive integers.