Check out this map that mashes up population density and seismic risk and put the global earthquake risk in perspective.
The color shows historical earthquake activity—the redder the region, the more earthquake-prone it is. The scale of map itself is distorted by population, in what the geographers among us call a “gridded equal-population cartogram.”
According to the press release, the map
gives each person living on earth the same amount of space while also preserving the geographical reference. The map does not only show the areas that are at highest risk, but also how this risk relates to global population distribution.
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One small nugget of good that has come out of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan has been the burst of creative tools and resources that have come as responses to the disaster.