README

 This directory contains a number of files which are  output  for  the  NOAA
 Earthquake Data Base. This file gives a brief description of what they
 contain.

 .LST files:
      This  file  is  a copy of the listing which you received with you
 output, or would have received if a listing had been requested. It is 
on the floppy if there is room for it.

 .RAD files:
	If you had a radial listing produced, this is the listing which
contains the events in radial distance order from the point of interest.

 .TAP files:
      This is a list of the output in the format  of  a  tape  listing.
 This  format  is  more  compact  and  meant  to  be read by a computer
 program.

 .PS Files:
 	  These files (if they exist) are postscript files which contain the
 maps that came along with the listings. The number indicating the 
number of earthquakes plotted is a combination of intensities and
earthquakes. In many cases several events are plotted atop each other
so the total may not appear correct. This total should be the number 
of events in the *.eq+the intensity file if intensities are included
on your map. *.ps files are printable on most laser printers and 
can easily be edited with your favorite editor. 


 .SRC Files:
      This file contains a summary of the sources  which  the  data  in
 your output came from. An example looks like this:

SOURCE  NUMBER     FIRST        LAST          NONE    mb    MS OTHER  LOCAL
  G-R      28    5/ 7/1911   19/ 6/1950          0     0     0    28     0
  BDA       3    5/ 7/1911   11/ 8/1937          0     0     0     3     0
  ISS       3   13/ 4/1951   20/10/1958          0     0     0     3     0
  PDE     509   24/ 4/1960   30/ 6/1987          0   506    45    13     0

 For each source the total number of events, the dates of the first and
 last  events,  and  the  number  of each type of magnitude reports are
 listed.


 Magnitude files:
      These files have names which have three parts.  The  first  5  or
 less)  characters  are  a  possibly shortened search identifier,  they
 should look familiar.  The last three characters of the file name  are
 the three letter source abbreviation,  for example PDE,  BRK, DMG etc.
 These codes are listed and explained in the text with your output. The
 extensions on the magnitude files give the type of  magnitude  counted
 in that file.  These are either mb, ms1, or ms2 where ms2 is the local
 LOC or OTH or other magnitude in the output descriptions.

      The magnitude files have three columns.  Column 1  has  the  mag-
 nitude to the nearest tenth, column 2 has the number of occurrences of
 that  magnitude,  and column three has the cumulative number of events
 with that magnitude or larger.  For example one magnitude  file  looks
 like this:

 4.0 3 22  (3 events with M = 4.0 and 22 events with M >= 4.0)
 4.1 2 19
 4.2 4 17
 4.3 5 13
 4.5 2 8
 4.8 1 6
 5.2 1 5
 5.3 1 4
 5.6 1 3
 5.8 1 2
 5.9 1 1

*.eq files
	These are files in which the duplicates have been removed. Some
find them easier to extract data from than our other formats. Some
data is missing in these files, and each event is listed only once.
The maps are produced from these files + files with earthquake 
intensity (you did not receive this file, but the data is found in 
the *.tap *.lst or *.rad files you did receive. If you had a radial
listing done, your *.eq files will have the extension *.eqr. The difference
in these is that *.eqr files have as the last field the distance
in kilometers from the stated center point, *.eq files do not contain
this data.