Google LLC today detailed a new project aimed at harnessing crowdsourced sensor data from Android devices to warn users when an earthquake hits their area.

There are more than 2.5 billion Android devices worldwide and most have a built-in accelerometer that measures motion. These accelerometers, Google has found, are often sensitive enough to pick up earthquakes. The search giant is building a detection system that will have the ability to collect seismic activity data from a large number of Android devices in a given region and analyze that data to determine when an earthquake is occurring.

Google is looking to track two types of seismic activity in particular. These are the primary waves of an earthquake, which hit first, and the secondary waves that follow close behind and tend to cause more damage. The tremors they generate at the surface are usually felt first at the epicenter of the earthquake first before spreading to a broader area. 

According to Google, Android devices at the epicenter could pick up seismic activity early on and send the data to its detection system. The system could then send mobile notifications to users who are farther away from the earthquake’s starting point to give them an early warning. Google believes that, in theory, this approach would make it possible to give users in the outer areas of an earthquake impact zone as many as 45 seconds to take cover. 

“We’re essentially racing the speed of light (which is roughly the speed at which signals from a phone travel) against the speed of an earthquake,” Google principle Android engineer Marc Stogaitis detailed in a blog post. “And lucky for us, the speed of light is much faster!”

Google is calling the system the Android Earthquake Alerts System. Development is at a fairly early stage and the search plans to build out the platform in stages, gradually adding features over time.

The first feature, which started rolling out in California today, is arriving as a Google Play update to Android. California-based users who enable the Google Location Services option in the Android settings can start receiving earthquake alerts from the state’s ShakeAlert early warning system. 

Over the incoming years, Google will bring the alerting features to more states and countries. Later, users will gain the ability to search Google when they feel tremors and see an information box at the top of results telling them if there’s an earthquake in their area. The alerting feature that will use crowdsourced accelerometer data from Android devices to send earthquake notifications will roll out after the search information box.

Google has big ambitions for the project. It hopes the crowdsourced Android data will one day help improve earthquake detection in areas with a limited number of traditional seismometers. “Installing a ground network of seismometers, as California has done, may not be feasible in all impacted areas around the world,” Stogaitis explained. “So we’re using the reach of Android’s platform to help detect earthquakes.”

Image: Google