quake-mcp

An MCP server for the USGS Earthquake Hazards API. It lets AI assistants search the global earthquake catalog, look up event details, count quakes, find "Did You Feel It" reports, and read the USGS realtime feeds. No API key required.

What is MCP?

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude connect to external tools and data sources. An MCP server exposes a set of tools and resources over a simple transport (here, stdio); any MCP-capable client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and others) can launch the server and call its tools during a conversation, so the assistant can answer questions with live data instead of stale training knowledge.

What this server does

quake-mcp wraps the public USGS earthquake catalog and realtime feeds:

• Search earthquakes by time range, magnitude range, bounding box, or center point plus radius
• Get full details for a specific event by id (depth, intensity, PAGER alert, tsunami flag, felt reports)
• List significant earthquakes from the last N days
• Count earthquakes matching a query without listing them
• Find quakes with "Did You Feel It" citizen reports near a location
• Read the USGS realtime feed summaries (past hour, day, and week) as MCP resources

Output is formatted, truncated to a sane size for LLM context windows, and includes USGS event ids and links for follow-up.

Install

Run directly with npx (recommended, nothing to install):

npx quake-mcp

Or install globally:

npm install -g quake-mcp

Requires Node.js 20 or newer.

Configuration

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json (Settings, Developer, Edit Config):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quake": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "quake-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add quake -- npx -y quake-mcp

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json in your project (or ~/.cursor/mcp.json globally):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quake": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "quake-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Tools

search_earthquakes

Search the USGS catalog. All parameters are optional; the default is the past 30 days, worldwide, newest first.

Parameter	Type	Description
start_time	string	ISO 8601 start of the time window. Default: 30 days ago.
end_time	string	ISO 8601 end of the time window. Default: now.
min_magnitude	number	Minimum magnitude, e.g. 5 for M5+.
max_magnitude	number	Maximum magnitude.
min_latitude, max_latitude	number	Bounding box edges in decimal degrees.
min_longitude, max_longitude	number	Bounding box edges in decimal degrees.
latitude, longitude, radius_km	number	Circle search: center point and radius in km. All three required together.
limit	integer	Max events to return, 1 to 200. Default 25.
orderby	string	time (default), time-asc, magnitude, magnitude-asc.

Example prompts:

• "Show me all M5+ earthquakes near Japan this week"
• "List the 10 largest earthquakes in the last month, sorted by magnitude"
• "Any earthquakes within 200 km of Mexico City since June 1?"

get_earthquake

Full details for one event.

Parameter	Type	Description
event_id	string	USGS event id, e.g. us7000abcd (returned by the search tools).

Example prompts:

• "Get the details for earthquake us7000srcg"
• "Was there a tsunami warning for that quake?"

recent_significant

Significant earthquakes from the last N days, using the USGS significance score (the same threshold as the official significant events feed).

Parameter	Type	Description
days	integer	How many days back to look, 1 to 365. Default 7.
limit	integer	Max events, 1 to 200. Default 25.

Example prompts:

• "What were the significant earthquakes this week?"
• "Any major quakes in the last 30 days?"

count_earthquakes

Count matching events without listing them. Accepts the same time, magnitude, and location filters as search_earthquakes (minus limit and orderby).

Example prompts:

• "How many M4.5+ earthquakes happened worldwide in the last 30 days?"
• "How many quakes hit within 500 km of Tokyo this year?"

felt_reports

Earthquakes near a location with "Did You Feel It" (DYFI) citizen reports.

Parameter	Type	Description
latitude	number	Center latitude (required).
longitude	number	Center longitude (required).
radius_km	number	Search radius in km. Default 300.
days	integer	How many days back to look. Default 30.
min_felt	integer	Minimum number of felt reports. Default 1.
limit	integer	Max events. Default 25.

Example prompts:

• "Did anyone feel an earthquake near San Francisco this week?"
• "Which quakes near Los Angeles got the most felt reports this month?"

Resources

The server exposes USGS realtime feed summaries as readable resources:

URI	Feed
usgs://feeds/significant/day	Significant earthquakes, past day
usgs://feeds/significant/week	Significant earthquakes, past week
usgs://feeds/4.5/day	M4.5+ earthquakes, past day
usgs://feeds/4.5/week	M4.5+ earthquakes, past week
usgs://feeds/2.5/day	M2.5+ earthquakes, past day
usgs://feeds/1.0/hour	M1.0+ earthquakes, past hour

Development

git clone https://github.com/adamcwade/quake-mcp.git
cd quake-mcp
npm install
npm run build     # compile TypeScript to dist/
npm test          # run unit tests (vitest)
node scripts/smoke.mjs   # end-to-end test against the live USGS API

To try the server interactively, use the MCP Inspector:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node dist/index.js

Publishing

npm publish runs the build automatically via prepublishOnly. Only dist/, README.md, and LICENSE are included in the package.

Notes

• Data comes from the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program and is in the public domain. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by USGS.
• The USGS API asks clients to be reasonable with request rates; this server sends a descriptive User-Agent and caps result sizes.

License

MIT, copyright 2026 Adam Wade. See LICENSE.