Global CMT Web Page

Introduction and Explanation

During the summer of 2006, the main activities of the research project known as the Harvard Centroid-Moment-Tensor (CMT) Project moved with Principal Investigator Göran Ekström from Harvard University to Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) of Columbia University. Adam Dziewonski, the founder and co-Principal Investigator of the CMT project, is at Harvard University. The third active participant in the CMT project is Meredith Nettles at LDEO, Columbia University. The Harvard CMT Project is moving forward under the name "The Global CMT Project". The main dissemination point for information and results from the project is the web site www.globalcmt.org.
The CMT project has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation since its inception, and is currently supported by award EAR-0639963.

Shallow earthquakes, 1976-2005.

The Global CMT Project involves four main activites:

1. Systematic determination, with a three-to-four-month delay, of moment tensors for earthquakes with M>5 globally, and accumulation of the results in the CMT catalog.
2. Rapid determination of moment tensors for earthquakes with M>5.5 globally and quick dissemination of results ("quick CMTs").
3. Curation of the CMT catalog, which contains more than 25,000 moment tensors for earthquakes since 1976.
4. Development and implementation of improved methods for the quantification of earthquake source characteristics on a global scale.

Links to CMT resources:

CMT catalog web search

CMT catalog and Quick CMT ASCII files

Current events detected using surface waves

Waveform Quality Center (WQC)

Earlier CMT Project page (to be updated)