Poseidon: Global Earthquake Dataset (1990-2020)

This is the official dataset for the paper POSEIDON: Physics-Optimized Seismic Energy Inference and Detection Operating Network.

Overview

Poseidon is a largest opensource global earthquake dataset containing 2.8+ million seismic events spanning 30 years (1990-2020). Named after the Greek god of earthquakes, this dataset is designed for machine learning applications including earthquake prediction, seismic hazard analysis, spatiotemporal pattern recognition, and energy-based modeling.

Dataset Statistics

Metric	Value
Total Events	2,833,766
Time Span	1990-01-01 to 2024-12-31
Magnitude Range	0.0 - 9.1
Geographic Coverage	Global (-90 to 90 lat, -180 to 180 lon)
Spatial Resolution	180 x 360 grid bins (1 degree resolution)

Features

Core Seismic Properties

Column	Type	Description
id	string	Unique USGS event identifier
time	string	ISO 8601 timestamp (UTC)
latitude	float64	Event latitude (-90 to 90)
longitude	float64	Event longitude (-180 to 180)
depth	float64	Hypocenter depth in kilometers
magnitude	float64	Event magnitude
mag_type	string	Magnitude type (ml, mb, mw, md, etc.)

Event Metadata

Column	Type	Description
place	string	Human-readable location description
type	string	Event type (earthquake, quarry blast, etc.)
status	string	Review status (reviewed, automatic)
tsunami	int64	Tsunami flag (1 = tsunami generated, 0 = none)
sig	int64	Significance score (0-1000+)
net	string	Contributing seismic network code

Quality Metrics

Column	Type	Description
nst	float64	Number of stations used
dmin	float64	Minimum distance to nearest station (degrees)
rms	float64	Root mean square travel time residual
gap	float64	Azimuthal gap (degrees)
horizontal_error	float64	Horizontal location uncertainty (km)
depth_error	float64	Depth uncertainty (km)
mag_error	float64	Magnitude uncertainty
mag_nst	float64	Number of stations for magnitude calculation

Temporal Features (Pre-computed)

Column	Type	Description
year	int64	Event year
month	int64	Event month (1-12)
day	int64	Event day (1-31)
hour	int64	Event hour (0-23 UTC)
minute	int64	Event minute (0-59)
second	int64	Event second (0-59)

Spatial Grid Features (Pre-computed)

Column	Type	Description
lat_bin	int64	Latitude bin index (0-179) for heatmap generation
lon_bin	int64	Longitude bin index (0-359) for heatmap generation

Energy Features (Pre-computed)

Column	Type	Description
energy_joules	float64	Seismic energy release in Joules
log_energy	float64	Log10 of energy (for numerical stability)

Energy Calculation

Seismic energy is computed using the Gutenberg-Richter energy-magnitude relation:

log10(E) = 1.5 x M + 4.8

Where E = Energy in Joules and M = Earthquake magnitude.

Example values:

Magnitude	Energy (Joules)	Equivalent
2.0	6.3 x 10^7	Small explosion
4.0	6.3 x 10^10	15 tons TNT
6.0	6.3 x 10^13	15 kilotons TNT
8.0	6.3 x 10^16	15 megatons TNT
9.0	2.0 x 10^18	475 megatons TNT

Usage

import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_csv("poseidon.csv")
df['datetime'] = pd.to_datetime(df['time'])

Example: Filter Significant Events

major_quakes = df[df['magnitude'] >= 6.0]
print(f"Major earthquakes (M6+): {len(major_quakes):,}")

tsunami_events = df[df['tsunami'] == 1]
print(f"Tsunami-generating events: {len(tsunami_events):,}")

Applications

This dataset is designed for:

• Earthquake Prediction Models
• Aftershock Sequence Analysis
• Magnitude-Frequency Analysis
• Tsunami Early Warning
• Energy-Based Models (EBMs)
• CNN/RNN Training
• Seismic Hazard Mapping

License

This dataset is released under CC BY 4.0.

Acknowledgments

• USGS Earthquake Hazards Program for providing the source data
• Gutenberg and Richter for the foundational energy-magnitude relation