EMSC SeismicPortal Web Services
⚠️ Written permission needed to mirror or bulk-copy
The SeismicPortal Terms and Conditions says:
“Reproducing or redistributing them in whole or in substantial part, for example mirroring the site or bulk-copying a database, requires prior written permission from EMSC-CSEM.”
Source: SeismicPortal Terms and Conditions (checked Nov 2, 2026). This isn't legal advice.
A catalog entry with more open terms is:
Each source has its own terms; read its licence note before you use it.
EMSC SeismicPortal Web Services
EMSC SeismicPortal provides an FDSN event API for earthquake parameters, with requested results in GeoJSON, QuakeML or CSV. Event records include time, coordinates, depth, magnitude, region, source catalogue and last-update time; no key is needed.
Required Attribution:
Requested credit: "Credit: EMSC-CSEM SeismicPortal, https://www.seismicportal.eu"
Coverage
The catalogues are worldwide and begin in 1998; the primary EMSC-RTS catalogue begins in 2004 and is continuously updated, while geographic and small-magnitude coverage are not uniform. New origins normally appear within minutes, can be delayed until a confidence threshold is reached and may change during the first few days. The API supports time, geographic, depth and magnitude filters plus limit and offset parameters, but no maximum query size is stated.
Verdict
This is a near-real-time event signal for earthquakes that may affect assets, transport or operations. Publication can lag the main EMSC site by minutes, parameters may fluctuate for days, and coverage is not geographically uniform. Pre-2014 queries can contain duplicate events from overlapping catalogues unless a catalogue is specified. Downloaded datasets allow commercial reuse with attribution under CC BY 4.0, but mirroring the site or bulk-copying the database requires prior written permission.
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