About two years ago, Greg Sterling wrote a piece on Searching for Earthquakes. Since then, I believe Ask.com was the only search engine providing a “smart answer” for earthquake data. Ask.com continues to offer the smart answer, but recently, Google added their own.

Google Operating System reports Google has added an Earthquake OneBox result for a search on earthquake. Here is a picture:

The data Google uses for this OneBox is from U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program.

Postscript: A day or so after, Google posted information about this new OneBox and titled their post Shaking up earthquake searches.

Related Topics: Google: OneBox, Plus Box & Direct Answers

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz