John Metcalfe was CityLab’s Bay Area bureau chief, covering climate change and the science of cities.
Seismic sensors picked up the massive quake from across the world.
The signature of Nepal's devastating earthquake is all over this visualization of the dreadful event, showing ground motion on April 25 going wild all across the United States. The 7.8-magnitude quake killed more than 6,200 people, with many more unaccounted for, and shrank Mount Everest by about an inch.
EarthScope seismic stations in the United States picked up the seismic event. In the animation [above] you can see the stations (white dots) responding to the seismic waves from the Nepal earthquake, causing them to move up vertically (red) or down vertically (blue). The seismogram from the station circled in yellow is at the bottom of the animation.