Inspiration
I wanted to see the living geology of the planet in real time, not a flat list of numbers. The USGS feed is public and rich, but nothing rendered it in a way that felt alive.
What it does
Earthquake Globe turns the live USGS earthquake feed into an interactive 3D globe for iPhone and Android. Spin the planet, watch seismic activity ripple across it in near real time, and tap any event for magnitude, depth, location and shaking estimates. Filters narrow by magnitude, time and region, and notifications alert you about strong quakes worldwide or near places you care about.
How I built it
It renders natively with MapKit and custom visual layers: color coded markers by magnitude, glowing ripples for the freshest events, and smooth camera flights. There is no account and no backend, the app talks directly to the public USGS API.
Challenges I ran into
Rendering thousands of events smoothly on a globe while streaming updates every few minutes took careful batching and level of detail work. Making notifications useful without being noisy meant tuning thresholds by magnitude and distance.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
It is equal parts a practical safety tool and a mesmerizing way to watch the planet from your pocket, with no tracking and no server to slow it down.
What I learned
People care about earthquakes near people they love. The location based alerts turned a beautiful visualization into something people check every day.
What's next for Earthquake Globe
Historical playback, tsunami alerts, and richer detail pages for major events.
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