Data Mining in Twitter: Real-Time Earthquake Detection during

the Earthquake Swarm in Bicol Region

Abainza, 1
R.L. , Zaballero, 2
R. , Valle, G.1
1
National Institute of Geological Sciences, UP Diliman, Quezon City
2 Mining, Geology, and Ceramic Engineering Department, Adamson University, Manila

INTRODUCTION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The Philippines, aside from being a tectonically active archipelago
(Acharya, et al. 1980), is also known to be the top social media hub
Character Length - Context Relationship
in the world, with Twitter as one of the frequently used sites The words “lindol" and “lumindol” were used in different contexts in the 3, 567 analyzed
(Camus, 2017). tweets (e.g. punch line, emotional post, and description of shows, and possible felt
shaking). The analysis shows that those who have actually felt some shaking, in realtime,
This study, which is first in the Philippines, aims to test the tweets with much less characters than those who used it in different contexts (Figure 2).
effectivity of using Twitter data along to reliably and quickly detect
Tweet Username Timestamp
and estimate the parameters of an earthquake event. This can be a
foundation for the development of automated algorithms (Earle et Medyo malakas yung lindol ah hala tsk tsk jhingboygutierr 2017-11-05 23:38:42
al., 2012) that will play a major role in further understanding the LUMINDOL WHAT BerdsKatlyn 2017-11-05 23:38:42
social impacts of an earthquake event and in speeding up the Lumindol. matabangbilbiil 2017-11-05 23:38:42
disaster response. The study investigated the twitter data trends in Tweet Username Timestamp
the Philippines from November 01 to 09, 2017 during the felt- Grabeng bus ito. Dinaig pa ang may lindol bhielogbilog 2017-11-05 03:43:58
earthquake swarm in Bicol Region with magnitudes ranging from Lumindol na ba sa QC nitong mga nakaraang araw? O lilindol pa lang? nicadorable 2017-11-05 02:47:44
3.0-4.0 (Figure 1). Ilang isla ng Samoa, niyanig ng magnitude 6.8 na lindol - RMN Networks rmnnetworks 2017-11-05 02:15:21

Avg. No. of Characters Figure 2. Sample of Tweets extracted and Table of

EQ General Firsthand Comparison. The difference of their tweet character quantity can
1 54 17 readily be observed, following the logical assumption that those
who felt the earthquake will tweet to question or affirm what they
2 49 16
felt, as compared to those who used the keywords in other
3 65 20
contexts.
AVG 56 18

Event Detection
The D-values for the three earthquake events all exceed 1.0 (Figure 3), implying that the
tweet influx during these events were much greater than the long-term average. The
spikes in tweet frequency positively correlated with the events, with an average of 0.8
minute-delays (d) from the recorded earthquake time (T). After the peak, there is
decrease again, leading back to the pre-earthquake event values just after ~3 hours.
D-Value Time Series Graph (0:00 11-02-2017 - 23:59 11-07-17)
D-value

5
4 EQ 1 EQ 2 EQ 3
3 (Di = 6.45) (Di = 25.29)
Figure 1. Map of the earthquake events in the study. These earthquakes were (Di = 1.48) Threshold
2 Value (D=1)
associated with the movement of the Legazpi Lineament, which is the NW-SE 1
trending fault cutting the Bicol Peninsula in the province of Albay. The inset map 0
Nov 2, 17 0:00 20:24 20:48 21:12 21:36 Nov 3, 17 21:00 19:34 19:34 19:34 Nov 5, 17 6:00 22:27 23:53 0:17 0:41 1:05 1:29 Nov 6, 17 14:00
shows the earthquake epicenters from 1900-2017 (USGS) and the location of the 7 14
70
study area.
EQ 1 (20:23) November 02 EQ 2 (19:34) November 04 EQ 3 (23:35) November 05
T=20:23

T=19:34
Tweets/minute

5 11

T=23:35
53

METHODOLOGY 4
d=1.2 min
7
d=0.9 min
35
d=0.6 min

2 4 18
Geocode Location
Setup 0
18:00 20:24 20:32 20:40 20:48 20:56 21:04 21:12 21:20 21:28
0
15:00 19:34 19:41 19:48 19:55 20:02 20:09 20:16 20:23 20:30
0
19:00 22:17 23:25 23:42 23:50 23:58 0:06 0:14 0:22 0:30 0:38

Figure 3. Time-Series Graph of the D-values/minute from November 02 (12:00 AM) to November 6 (11:59 PM)
and Time-Series Graph of theTweet Frequency of the three respective earthquake events.
Timeframe and
Keyword Input
Normalized Tweet Frequency Distribution
The maps show high D-values located in Bicol Region as compared to the country-wide
Data Extraction
scale. These snapshots provide early detection of the region where the earthquake event
was widely felt based solely on the normalized tweet influx (Figure 4).

Data Analysis

where the D is a proportion value calculated every minute

where an earthquake event will be returned as positive
once its value exceeds 1.0. The variable n1 stands for the
number of tweets in a minute, while A120 stands for the
average tweets-per-minute in the past 120-minute interval.

Event Detection Equation For spatial analysis, the D-values were normalized through
(Modified from Earle et al., 2012)
population density per geocode location.

CONCLUSION
The study showed the potential of Twitter as an additional tool in
providing reliable estimation of the affected areas faster than the
broadcast from earthquake monitoring agencies. The limitations
of the Twitter data, as shown in the study, supports the fact that Figure 4. Localized D-value distribution Maps for the respective
the conventional earthquake monitoring methods still cannot be earthquake events.The localized spatial distribution in and intensity
of the generated D-values were positively correlative with the
disregarded, rather, the data obtained from the site can be used to
reported intensities from the Earthquake Bulletins issued by
improve the efficiency and densify the amount of information that PHIVOLCS. The generated maps also show relatively higher D-
can be used by the authorities or the general public after values in areas with no reported intensities, implying the fact that
these areas may also have experienced some shaking but were not
earthquake events. reported to PHIVOLCS.

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