From earthquakes to glaciers to mining blasts, seismometers measure ground shaking. Learn about earthquakes in Alaska, what the Earthquake Center does, and how scientists detect and understand seismic signals.

Why Earthquakes Happen in Alaska Overview (Alaska Earthquake Center website)
High school to early college students
The Alaska Earthquake Center detects an average of 50,000 earthquakes in the state annually. Learn about the seismic signals from Alaska's subduction zone and volcanoes. 

Other Seismic Sources (Alaska Earthquake Center website)
High school to early college students
Learn about the seismic signals from non-earthquake sources: landslides, volcanoes, explosions, glaciers, meteor strikes, humans, wildlife, and oceans.

Recent Earthquakes Interactive Map (Alaska Earthquake Center website)
4th grade to early college students
Various tools and settings—such as depth, magnitude, and time ranges—allow you to explore the earthquakes across Alaska that occurred within the past 2 weeks. You can also create graphs showing the cumulative number of earthquakes for selected geographic regions, cross sections of depth, and the number of earthquakes of different magnitudes over time.
Challenge Questions for Recent Earthquakes Map (6th grade to 12th grade) Learn to use the tools on the Earthquake Center’s Recent Earthquakes Map.

Earthquake Intensity
3rd grade to early college students
This lesson focuses on the distinction between earthquake magnitude and intensity and how magnitude and distance affect intensity.

Did You Feel It?
3rd grade to early college students
This lesson teaches students how intensity data is collected and how to report and accurately describe the severity of an earthquake event with the USGS Did You Feel It? (DYFI) tool.

Engaging with Earthquake Hazard and Risk
6th grade to 8th grade students
This introductory activity engages learners with the study of earthquake hazards and the risk these hazards pose to humans in their communities. Learners are introduced to geologic site effects (such as sediment type, saturation, and depth) that affect the intensity of shaking experienced at any given location during an earthquake. Learners will compare three maps of Anchorage, AK, depicting spatial information related to seismic hazards to generate questions about additional factors besides site effects that influence shaking intensity and damage to the built environment during earthquakes.

Exploring Plate Boundaries with Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and GPS (western U.S. and Alaska)
6th grade to early college students
This lesson visualizes the relationship between earthquakes, volcanoes, and plate boundaries, with an additional focus on velocity vectors, how to describe and draw them, and how they inform plate boundary zones.