Terms of Use

Data Accuracy and Verification

PlainQuake aggregates and reformats earthquake data that originates from the USGS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat), a public dataset of the U.S. Geological Survey. While we take reasonable steps to ingest, normalize, and refresh this data, upstream catalog records may contain magnitude revisions, location refinements, lag behind real-world detection, or omit smaller events in sparsely instrumented regions. You are solely responsible for verifying any fact that influences a safety, engineering, financial, or similarly consequential decision. Cross-reference the official USGS source before acting on anything you read here.

Acceptable Use

You may browse, read, and share PlainQuake content for personal, journalistic, academic, and non-commercial research use. You may cite specific records with attribution and a link back to the page on plainquake.com. You may not (a) systematically scrape, crawl, or download the dataset in bulk without prior written permission; (b) resell, sublicense, or redistribute derived data products that compete with PlainQuake; (c) use our pages to harass, defame, or misrepresent any individual or organization appearing in the data; (d) remove, obscure, or mislabel source attribution; or (e) attempt to bypass rate limits, security controls, or authentication mechanisms.

Plain-Language Editorial Role

PlainQuake combines the raw USGS catalog with plain-language summaries, explainers, and comparisons. The figures, tables, and rankings on every page are computed automatically by our data pipeline directly from the USGS ComCat records, they are not hand-entered or hand-edited. We do not modify the underlying magnitudes, depths, locations, or timestamps. If you spot a summary that misreads the data, please email the correction address on our contact page and we will re-derive the affected page from the source.

Intellectual Property and Content Licensing

The underlying public records surfaced on PlainQuake are in the public domain or otherwise freely licensed by the issuing agency, you are free to use those raw facts. However, our site design, layout, navigation structure, original editorial copy, category taxonomies, comparison tables, and curated rankings are the copyrighted work of PlainQuake. These creative elements may not be reproduced in whole or substantial part without permission.

Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms of Use from time to time to reflect changes in our data sources, product features, legal environment, or advertising relationships. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date above and, when appropriate, surface a brief notice on the homepage. Continued use of the site after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised terms. We encourage you to revisit this page periodically.

Governing Law and Disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the jurisdiction in which PlainQuake is domiciled, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Any dispute arising from or relating to your use of PlainQuake will first be addressed through good-faith informal negotiation. If that fails, both parties agree to resolve the dispute in the courts with jurisdiction over PlainQuake's principal place of business. Nothing in these terms limits your statutory consumer-protection rights under applicable local law.

Legal Notices

For formal legal notices, DMCA takedown requests, subpoenas, law-enforcement requests, or correspondence regarding these terms, email legal@plainquake.com. General questions, data corrections, and feedback should use the contact page so they reach the editorial team promptly.