Global CMT Web Page


Introduction and Explanation

The Global Centroid-Moment-Tensor (CMT) Project is overseen by Principal Investigator Göran Ekström and Co-Principal Investigator Meredith Nettles at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) of Columbia University. The project was founded by Adam Dziewonski at Harvard University and operated there as the Harvard CMT Project from 1982-2006, led first by Prof. Dziewonski and later by Prof. Ekström. During the summer of 2006, the activities of the CMT Project moved with Prof. Ekström to LDEO. This research effort moves forward under the name "The Global CMT Project". The main dissemination point for information and results from the project is the web site www.globalcmt.org.
The CMT project has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation since its inception, and is currently supported by award EAR-16-39131.


Shallow earthquakes, 1976-2005.


The Global CMT Project involves four main activites:

  1. Systematic determination, with a three-to-four-month delay, of moment tensors for earthquakes with M>5 globally, and accumulation of the results in the CMT catalog.
  2. Rapid determination of moment tensors for earthquakes with M>5.5 globally and quick dissemination of results ("quick CMTs").
  3. Curation of the CMT catalog, which contains more than 25,000 moment tensors for earthquakes since 1976.
  4. Development and implementation of improved methods for the quantification of earthquake source characteristics on a global scale.

How to cite the CMT catalog:

The Global CMT project is a research activity funded by the National Science Foundation, and we greatly appreciate users of the catalog including appropriate citations to our work in their published articles. Please see the following link for suggestions of the appropriate papers to cite depending on your usage of the catalog:
how to cite the Global CMT catalog

Links to CMT resources:

CMT catalog web search

CMT catalog and Quick CMT ASCII files

Description of the CMT procedure

Special studies of particular earthquakes or sets of earthquakes

Current events detected using surface waves

Waveform Quality Center (WQC)



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Last modified: December 4, 2018 (M. Nettles)