About

Last modified: 5/10/2026

About ve-geology

GeoHazardWatch is an open-source add-on for the Next Generation Digital Platform
wiki platform that brings volcano and earthquake data into wiki pages via simple markup tags.

GeoHazardWatch is not a near-real time data feed by periodically importing snapshots from public scientific APIs and
making that data available to wiki plugins. This keeps the site fast and resilient to upstream outages, at the cost of some data freshness.


What data is available

Dataset Provider Coverage
--------- ---------- ----------
Volcano catalog Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program (GVP) ~2,600 Holocene and Pleistocene volcanoes worldwide
Eruption history Smithsonian GVP Historical eruption records, confirmed and uncertain
Earthquake data USGS Earthquake Hazards Program Global M4.5+ events, past 7 days (default)
US volcano alerts USGS Hazard Alert Notification System (HANS) 65 monitored US volcanoes

Data sources

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program (GVP)

The GVP maintains the world's most comprehensive catalog of volcanic activity.
The ve-geology volcano catalog is drawn from the GVP WFS API and covers:

Source: volcano.si.edu
Data citation: Global Volcanism Program, 2025. Volcanoes of the World (v. 5.3.4).
Smithsonian Institution. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.GVP.VOTW5-2023.5.3

USGS Earthquake Hazards Program

The USGS monitors global seismic activity in near-real-time. ve-geology imports the
M4.5+ past-7-days feed by default. Earthquakes are cross-referenced with the GVP
volcano catalog to identify events within 50 km of a known volcano.

Each earthquake record includes:

Source: earthquake.usgs.gov
Feed: USGS GeoJSON Feeds

USGS Hazard Alert Notification System (HANS)

HANS provides real-time alert levels for the 65 US volcanoes monitored by the USGS
Volcano Hazards Program. Alert levels follow a four-level scale (NORMAL → ADVISORY →
WATCH → WARNING) paired with aviation colour codes (GREEN → YELLOW → ORANGE → RED).

Coverage is limited to US volcanoes only — primarily in Alaska, Hawaii, the Cascades,
and the western US. For global volcanic activity use the GVP-sourced plugins.

Source: volcanoes.usgs.gov
Live HANS data: volcanoes.usgs.gov/hans-public/api/


Data freshness

All data on this site is a point-in-time snapshot, not a live feed. Data is imported
by running the addon's import scripts manually (or on a schedule if configured).

Dataset Recommended refresh cadence
--------- ---------------------------
Volcano catalog Weekly (changes rarely)
Eruption history Weekly
Earthquake data Every 15–30 minutes for current activity
US volcano alerts Every 5–15 minutes for current hazards

If you need live data, visit the source portals directly (links above).


Plugin reference

Seven wiki markup plugins are available:

Plugin What it renders
-------- ----------------
[{VolcanoInfobox number='...'}] Sidebar card for a single volcano
[{VolcanoList}] Paginated, filterable table of volcanoes
[{VolcanoSearch}] Interactive live-search widget with dropdowns
[{VolcanoMap}] Interactive Leaflet map with volcano markers
[{EarthquakeList}] Paginated table of recent earthquakes with alert badges
[{EarthquakeMap}] Interactive Leaflet map of earthquake events
[{HansAlerts}] US volcano alert level table

Full usage guide with examples: Plugin Guide


Open source

ve-geology is open source and available at github.com/jwilleke/ve-geology.
The ngdpbase platform that powers this wiki is at github.com/jwilleke/ngdpbase.