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Mapped: The World’s Major Earthquakes from 1956‒2022

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This map highlights the epicenters of earthquakes on record between 1956 and 2022.

Mapping The World’s Major Earthquakes from 1956‒2022

Major earthquakes have occurred since time immemorial, but their observation and impact have not been evenly distributed around the globe.

On February 6, two earthquakes struck in Türkiye near the Syrian border. Both registered above a 7 on the Richter scale and have a combined death toll rapidly rising past 20,000 people.

And looking at the history of recent and ancient earthquakes, the location of these is no surprise. Using data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), creator PythonMaps mapped earthquake epicenters between 1956 and 2022 that registered a 4.5 or higher on the Richter scale.

Tectonic Plate Movement and Earthquakes

Looking at the map, it’s easy to spot the concentration of earthquakes along the boundaries of Earth’s tectonic plates.

These massive moving slabs of rock fit together almost like puzzle pieces, making up the lithosphere or the upper crust. But as the edges of tectonic plates collide, slide against, and move away from each other, the crust cracks and folds and causes earthquakes.

Most of the earthquakes visualized on this map follow the boundaries of the seven major tectonic plates, along with the Philippine Plate (south of Japan) and the Nazca Plate (west of South America).

Here’s a list of the most earthquake-prone areas on the planet, according to the USGS.

Earthquake ZonesTectonic PlatesLocations
Ring of FirePacific, North American, Philippine, Juan de Fuca, Cocos, NazcaRim of the Pacific Ocean.
Alpide BeltEurasian, African, Arabian, IndianJava to Sumatra, through the Himalayas, west to the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic.
Mid-Atlantic RidgeNorth American, Eurasian, South American, AfricanDeep underwater in the Atlantic, and directly underneath Iceland.

According to academics, the recent earthquakes in Türkiye (part of the Alpide Belt) happened on multiple faults. The Arabian Plate likely moved northwards into the Eurasian Plate, pushing the Anatolian Plate (which Türkiye sits on) westward.

The Worst Earthquakes in History

Though earthquakes are spread around the world, major earthquakes seem even more tightly confined to specific regions.

These major earthquakes register highly on magnitude scales, such as the Richter scale (ML) and the newer and more commonly-used moment magnitude scale (Mw). These scales are logarithmic and ramp up quickly, so for the Richter scale, each whole number increase roughly corresponds to a 31.6-fold increase in energy released.

The map above sees a concentration of these bigger magnitude earthquakes congregating heavily around both sides of the Pacific Ocean. This border is also known colloquially as the “Ring of Fire” for its persistent volcanic activity, also caused by tectonic plate movement.

But the red points representing major earthquakes registering 9+ on the Richter scale are far and few between. Here’s a list of the 20 worst earthquakes in history, based on magnitude.

RankNameMagnitudeLocationDate (Y-M-D)
1Valdivia Earthquake9.5Bio-Bio, Chile1960-05-22
2Good Friday Earthquake9.2Alaska, U.S.1964-03-28
32004 Indian Ocean Earthquake9.1Sumatra, Indonesia2004-12-26
4Tohoku Earthquake9.1Honshu, Japan2011-03-11
51952 Severo-Kurilsk Earthquake9.0Kamchatka, Russia1952-11-04
6Maule Earthquake8.8Bio-Bio, Chile2010-02-27
71906 Ecuador–Colombia Earthquake8.8Ecuador1906-01-31
8Rat Islands Earthquake8.7Alaska, U.S.1965-02-04
9Assam-Tibet Earthquake8.6Assam, Tibet1950-08-15
102012 Indian Ocean Earthquake8.6Sumatra, Indonesia2012-04-11
11Nias Earthquake8.6Sumatra, Indonesia2005-03-28
121957 Andreanof Islands Earthquake8.6Alaska, U.S.1957-03-09
13Unimak Island Earthquake, Alaska8.6Alaska, U.S.1946-04-01
141938 Banda Sea Earthquake8.5Banda Sea1938-02-01
151922 Vallenar Earthquake8.5Chile-Argentina Border1922-11-11
161963 Kuril Islands Earthquake8.5Kuril Islands, Russia1963-10-13
171923 Kamchatka Earthquake8.4Kamchatka, Russia1923-02-03
18September 2007 Sumatra Earthquakes8.4Sumatra, Indonesia2007-09-12
19Peru Earthquake8.4Southern Peru2001-06-23
201933 Sanriku Earthquake8.4Honshu, Japan1933-03-02

Areas near Indonesia, Russia, and Chile — all on tectonic plate boundaries — have seen half of the largest earthquakes recorded in history.

That said, there could have been earlier and larger earthquakes not recorded. Earlier civilizations lacked precise instruments to measure and document them and preserved written observations only, with some of the earliest records dating back nearly three millennia.

Can We Predict Major Earthquakes?

Despite the ability to measure both location and intensity of earthquakes (using a seismograph), scientists still cannot precisely predict exactly where, when, or at what magnitude an earthquake will occur.

However, they can measure the probability of an earthquake occurring, especially around fault zones. A famous example is “the big one” around the Cascadia subduction zone in North America which occurs every 200 to 800 years.

In areas that sit on fault lines between plates, earthquake preparedness can play a big role in mitigating risk.

Interested in tectonic plate shifts? Here’s an animated video which shows one billion years of tectonic plate movement in 40 seconds.
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This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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Misc

Visualizing the Biomass of All the World’s Mammals

When the world’s biomass—the stuff we’re made of—is tallied up, humans and cattle outweigh wild mammals by a massive margin.

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Visualizing the Biomass of All the World’s Mammals

Even as we understand more about the world we live in, certain aspects of it remain undefined or hard to comprehend.

One such example is in the scale and distribution of Earth’s life. What’s the ratio of wild to domesticated animals? How much do all of the world’s humans weigh?

Until recently, such questions were nearly unanswerable. A new report titled The Global Biomass of Wild Mammals helps shed more light on the composition and scale of life on our planet. The research provides an estimate of the biomass of all mammals, globally—including humans.

So, What is Biomass Anyway?

Biomass is simply the weight of living things.

In this study, researchers

created rough estimates for four major categories of mammals: humans, domesticated animals, and those that were found in wild terrestrial and marine environments. A further breakdown of mammal groups are found within each category.

To achieve this, they took the estimated number of species from census data and multiplied it with each species’ average body mass.

One component worth pointing out is that animals contribute very different amounts to the world’s biomass total. For example, whales significantly outweigh rodents in terms of biomass, even though there are fewer species and populations of whales. The fact that whales are so much larger than rodents means that even smaller populations can contribute a meaningful portion to overall biomass.

Mammalian Biomass, Organized Neatly

Each larger cube above represents 20 million metric tons of carbon, and the entirety of the visualization represents all living mammalian life on Earth.

The paper separates mammals into four distinct categories:

CategoryTotal Mass (Mt)Top Sub-Category
Domesticated Mammals651Cattle (416 Mt)
Humans394n/a
Wild Marine Mammals40Baleen Whales (23 Mt)
Wild Terrestrial Mammals24Even-Hoofed Mammals (11 Mt)
Total1,109

One of the most obvious takeaways from this data is that humans make up one-third of total mammalian biomass.

Perhaps even more strikingly, the animals we’ve domesticated for food, companionship, and labor make up close to 60% of the total weight of Earth’s mammals. Domesticated dogs and cats alone equal the total weight of all other wild land mammals combined.

The world’s sheep, on their own, weigh as much as all the whales and seals in the ocean. Domesticated buffalo such as the water buffalo, a species commonly found in Asia, combine to have the third largest biomass of all mammals.

Finally, there’s one category of mammal that comes way out on top.

Cattle Planet

The global livestock population has risen along with the human population, and cattle are now the top mammal in the world by weight.

In fact, just the United States’ share of cattle matches the biomass of all wild mammals on Earth.

As the standard of living continues to rise for people around the world, beef consumption has been increasing in many developing countries. Of course, raising cattle is a resource and land intensive operation, and there have been very real impacts on a global scale. For one, cows are a major source of methane emissions. As well, in Brazil, which accounts for around 25% of the world’s cattle population, pasture has directly replaced large swaths of rainforest habitat.

Waning Wildlife

At the very bottom of the visualization, dwarfed by humans and domesticated mammals, lies the vast array of wild mammals that live on planet Earth.

It’s sobering to see that the biomass of North America’s human population alone compares closely with that of all terrestrial wild mammals in the world. This includes plentiful creatures like rats and mice, as well as large mammals like elephants and bears.

Below are the top 10 wild mammalian contributors to biomass in the natural world.

RankContributorTotal Mass (Mt)Individuals (millions)
#1Fin Whales80.1
#2Sperm Whales70.4
#3Humpback Whales40.1
#4TAntarctic Minke Whales30.5
#4TBlue Whales30.05
#6White-Tailed Deer2.745
#7Crabeater Seals2.010
#8Wild Boar1.930
#9TAfrican Elephants1.30.5
#9TBryde's Whales1.30.1

In the ocean, whales and seals are the heavyweight champions. On land, deer, and boar come out on top as they are both heavy and plentiful.

Humans have a complicated relationship with large mammals. We feel a very clear connection to these creatures, and they are often the key figures in conservation efforts. That said, even small populations of humans have wiped out large mammal species in the past.

The news that cattle outweigh wild land animals by a factor of 20:1 is a reminder that human influence is perhaps even more powerful than we think.

The more we’re exposed to nature’s full splendor […] the more we might be tempted to imagine that nature is an endless and inexhaustible resource. In reality, the weight of all remaining wild land mammals is less than 10% of humanity’s combined weight. – Ron Milo, Professor of Systems Biology

Where does this data come from?

Source: The global biomass of wild mammals

Data notes: To come up with the numbers above, scientists estimated the total biomass of wild mammals on Earth by manually collecting population estimates for 392 land mammal species, which make up about 6% of all wild land mammal species, and using machine learning to infer the global populations of the remaining 94%. Their estimate includes 4,805 wild land mammal species out of approximately 6,400 known and extant wild land mammal species, excluding low-abundance species for which data are scarce.

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