USGS trawls Twitter for tremor tweets
Belba Grubb
Seriously, while trying to find tweeting volcano observatories and the
like, I noticed that the USGS has a very strong presence on Twitter
and wasn't surprised to read the following at the BBC:
"Tweets are being used by the US Geological Survey (USGS) to get
instant public reaction to earthquakes.
"The agency is trawling the messages to find out what people felt
during a tremor - whether there was a lot of shaking in their area or
not.
"There are big spikes in Twitter traffic immediately following a quake
and the USGS believes emergency responders might find the information
useful.
"It could help them assess very quickly the severity of a particular
event.
"However, the survey stressed that the social networking tool would
only ever supplement the existing scientific reporting systems which
determine shake effects....."
-- Full article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8413128.stm
Note that one of the spikes was caused by a test, not an actual
event.
I wonder if the NWS is using Twitter as an adjunct in storm tracking;
it sure could be helpful.
Barb
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"The worst is not,
So long as we can say, ‘This is the worst.'"
-- William Shakespeare, in /King Lear/