Usgs Earthquakes

What Usgs Earthquakes does

Usgs Earthquakes exposes selected USGS Earthquake Catalog operations as MCP tools. It works with both real-time and historical seismic events through the FDSNWS event API, allowing an MCP-compatible agent to search, inspect, and count earthquakes without building a direct catalog client.

The server is an independent integration and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the USGS. Its earthquake tools are keyless at the catalog-tool level. Requests made through the Pipeworx gateway are subject to gateway usage limits and account settings.

How it works

The hosted MCP endpoint is:

https://gateway.pipeworx.io/usgs-earthquakes/mcp

An MCP client can connect to that URL and discover the earthquake tools. The endpoint also exposes shared Pipeworx meta-tools, including routing and discovery tools, so the list returned by tools/list is larger than the three earthquake-specific tools. The full Pipeworx gateway is available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp when an agent needs direct access to the broader catalog of data sources.

A local npm package, @pipeworx/mcp-usgs-earthquakes, provides a stdio bridge. The client starts it with npx, and the bridge sends calls to the hosted endpoint, so network access is still required.

Setup and configuration

For a hosted connection, add the endpoint to an MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "usgs-earthquakes": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/usgs-earthquakes/mcp"
    }
  }
}

The local bridge can be configured as follows:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "usgs-earthquakes": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-usgs-earthquakes"]
    }
  }
}

Anonymous use is capped at 50 calls per day. A free Pipeworx account increases that allowance to 200 calls per day. Add PIPEWORX_API_KEY to the local server environment to authenticate with an account:

"env": { "PIPEWORX_API_KEY": "<your key>" }

Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 if the local bridge should also list the shared gateway tools. When operating behind an HTTPS proxy, newer Node.js releases may require NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 because Node's built-in fetch does not otherwise read HTTPS_PROXY by default.

Tools and capabilities

• search_earthquakes searches the catalog using a time range, magnitude range, depth, and circular geographic area. Use days or hours for relative windows such as the last seven days instead of calculating start_time manually. Results include event summaries and the exact time and magnitude filters used.
• get_earthquake retrieves a full record by USGS event ID, including magnitude, location, origin time, depth, felt reports, tsunami status, PAGER alert level, status, contributing networks, and detail URLs.
• count_earthquakes applies the search filters but returns a count rather than the matching event list. It also reports the effective time and magnitude filters.

The tools can also be reached through the gateway's HTTP tool interface, including endpoints under /v1/tools/.

Limitations and notes

The local package has no offline mode and must reach the Pipeworx gateway. Hosted and local connections reach the same gateway and data sources; they differ mainly in how the MCP connection is established and which tools are listed directly. Pack endpoints currently include shared gateway meta-tools, while the local bridge lists the earthquake pack's tools unless configured otherwise.