APIs Used & Offered

What Intensity Lab depends on, and what it offers in turn.

Services We Consume

Intensity Lab is built on top of several external services rather than reimplementing them:

USGS ComCat & ShakeMap

The earthquake catalog feed (magnitude, location, focal mechanism) and the ShakeMap grid/station products that drive every intensity calculation on the site. See USGS Earthquake Data & ShakeMap.

SCEC UCVM (Vs30)

Site-specific shear-wave velocity, the primary input for site amplification in every GMPE and BBP calculation. Reached through a dedicated Vs30 service (currently a local UCVM container in production; a metered external routing path exists and is deployed but not yet the live path). See Vs30: Site-Specific Soil Conditions.

SCEC Broadband Platform (via bbpapi)

Physics-based simulated seismograms, accessed as a separately hosted, metered REST API rather than run in-process. See Physics-Based Simulation (BBP).

YouTube Data API v3

Every completed animation (simulated, observed, and ground motion decay) is automatically uploaded as an unlisted video to the Intensity Lab YouTube channel and grouped into a per-event playlist. See Physics Animation (Blender).

Services We Offer

The Intensity Lab API is available at /api/v1/, split into two tiers:

No API Key Required

Public read-only endpoints: earthquake list and event detail, per-site intensities, animation listings, gazetteer and seismic station lists, and Vs30 lookup at any point. Explore public endpoints →

Requires an API Key

Registered endpoints require a JWT bearer token or API key, obtained by creating a free account. The primary one is on-demand ground motion:

POST /api/v1/ground-motion/ — an MMI estimate at any arbitrary lat/lon within the supported region for any published earthquake. Site-specific V_s30 is looked up automatically — the caller does not supply it. Five estimation methods are available:

shakemap_interpolated (default) — Downloads the USGS ShakeMap grid for the event and bilinearly interpolates MMI at the requested coordinates. Does not use V_s30 or GMPEs; the interpolated value reflects USGS observed shaking.
ask14, bssa14, cy14, cb14 — The four NGA-West2 GMPEs (see ShakeMap vs. GMPE Comparison). Each computes PGA from earthquake parameters and site-specific V_s30, then converts to MMI via the Worden et al. (2012) GMICE.

The response includes: the MMI value, method used, vs30_used (GMPE methods only), from_cache (true when the result was pre-computed for a gazetteer site), and in_shakemap_coverage (whether the point fell within the ShakeMap grid boundary). Registered users can also manage saved sites via /api/v1/users/sites.

Create a free account to get started. Try it interactively → View full API documentation →