Global Earthquake Atlas

Following the devastating earthquake which struck Turkey and Syria, on February 6, 2023, we decided—during the planning of the upcoming Data Visualisation course—to investigate multiple visual narratives to communicate earthquake data. By choosing this topic, we aimed to generating awareness about the responsibility of visualising and communicating scientific data, and to lending confidence to the students in dealing with complexity.
A selection of the students’ most representative works have been collected in a publication to document the semester output. Through the different maps and visualizations, the ‘Global Earthquake Atlas’ offers the reader insights about earthquakes since 1900 and their context. Divided in eight sections (one for each of the seven continents, and an introductory one), it also includes a glossary (meant to provide a broad and cross-­domain audience the vocabulary necessary to approach the content), interviews and students’ reflections on the design process.
The ‘Global Earthquake Atlas’ is meant on one end to encourage design students, educators, and practitioners, to embrace a broader view of knowledge, and on the other the scientific community is invited to engage in a conversation, thus opening up to the opportunities offered by interdisciplinary collaboration with information designers.