Researchers are developing an enhanced earthquake early warning system that would use GPS data to quickly measure the magnitude of an earthquake. An early warning can help save lives.
In this movie, an earthquake of magnitude 7.6 occurred to the south of the colorized section of the map in Baja California, Mexico. The red triangles are GPS stations permanently connected to the ground. As the earthquake moves the ground, this movement is recorded by the GPS stations. By the end of the movie, the orange area inside the black triangle near the bottom of the map has moved more than 150 mm (6 inches) because of the earthquake.