Would you like to be notified before an earthquake happens? What if you only had a few seconds warning to put yourself into a more favorable situation?

Data from earthquake sensors gets sent to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and centrally analyzed within seconds. If a significant event is determined, the information is immediately sent via multicast into the Internet, where participating computers can pick it up within a fraction of a second, and perhaps sound a local alarm.

Unlikely? A UCSD collaboration between seismologists and networking people of the HPWREN project is making it work. A program "mquake" (for multicast quake) is distributing the data from UCSD to interested receivers.

Over time, this may include other sensors where precise early warning information is desirable, including catastrophic weather information, floods, and other hazardous conditions, as appropriate sensors get deployed and connected to a data distribution system.