The project utilized Leaflet, D3, GeoJSON and Mapbox. The aim was to take recent earthquake data, loaded dynamically from the USGS API, and display it over geographical features such as tectonic plate fault lines and geopolitical boundaries.
The severity of each earthquake is represented visually through variations in scale and color-coding, and each one is located on the map dashboard through latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. A legend displays the color-coding associated with 5 levels of eartquake severity. The user may toggle on or off any combination of three different map overlays and three Mapbox styles. Typical panning and zoom map features allow additional interactivity, complemented by popups displaying magnitude and location details upon clicking any earthquake datapoint.
The functionality of the dashboard could be expanded through the inclusion of additional USGS data, such as the ability to shorten or expand the timeframe for which earthquake data to display. The scaling and color-coding of earthquake magnitude could be displayed with a greater degree of precision, by including a greater range of colors keyed to smaller increments of difference. Additional geolocational data could also be added to the dashboard, and any risk of degradation of clarity could be offset by maintaining the ability to toggle on or off as many filters as one chooses.
