Here’s an App that Turns your Phone into an Earthquake Detection Tool

An app called MyShake has made it possible to detect an earthquake. The app turns your phone into a seismology tool and records the generated data which is later studied by scientists.

Developed by UC Berkeley, this app has detected more than 200 seismic events across the world using data captured by 200,000 people who have downloaded the Android app since its launch.

The team’s goal is to use the sensors in your smartphone to record earthquake shaking.

At the moment, the app just records data and developers are planning to add an alert feature in future versions so that it can warn users of earthquakes.

By turning mobile phones into vast data collection points, scientists can quickly glean information about the quakes and warn others who are far away from the epicenter.

By developing this capability the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory hopes to create a dense network that could one day provide warnings prior to shaking.

The app runs “silently” in the background on the phone using very little power – just like the step-tracking fitness apps. When the shaking fits the vibrational profile of an earthquake, the app sends the anonymous information to a central system that confirms the location and magnitude of the quake.

MyShake also provides users with information about recent earthquakes around the world and significant global historical earthquakes.

This app is free of cost and it is available on Google Play Store and at myshake.berkeley.edu.