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Restless Earth, Live Earthquake Globe
An ops or science team wants live data to feel alive and still be readable, with honest behaviour when the feed is down.
The brief and the build
Brief: Build a live generative data visualisation from public, no-key feeds: a rotating globe, real earthquakes, filters, a stats panel, a live status, an offline mode and touch support.
Two kinds of motion on one planet: the slow drift of the atmosphere and the sudden events of the crust. Wind is a cold neutral particle layer from Open-Meteo, and earthquakes from the USGS feed are the only orange on screen, rippling out as they arrive.
You can filter by magnitude and time, replay the last day, and read charts in the logbook panel. If both feeds are blocked, a clearly labelled bundled sample loads, and “Try live again” returns to live data. Add ?sample to the URL to start on the sample.
Results
- Built: D3 orthographic globe on canvas, wind particles, live earthquakes, filters, replay, charts, two themes, polling with backoff and an offline fallback.
- Checked: screenshots at 1440 and 390 px, night and day, with no console errors; blocking both feeds loads the sample and recovers.
- Not yet tested: touch drag and pinch, and a real rate-limit response. The wind grid is coarse (15 degrees) to stay inside Open-Meteo’s free quota.
Stack
Highlights
- Live polling with backoff
- Wind particle layer
- Magnitude and time filters
- Replay
- Offline sample mode
- Light and dark themes
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