Using a web map is a flexible way of presenting your GIS project and I wanted to use R to create a Leaflet web map. This R script will:

• Download current earthquake data from USGS (United States Geological Survey)
• Convert the earthquake data to geometry (points)
• Download tectonic plates data from GitHub
• Create an interactive web map using Leaflet
• Export the web map to an HTML file

To run the script, you need R and I recommend RStudio for R development.

Code:

# Set working directory
setwd("C:\\R\\")

# Load libraries
library(htmlwidgets)
library(leaflet)
library(sf)

# Read earthquake csv file from USGS
quakescsv <- read.csv("https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/summary/4.5_month.csv")

# Earthquake coordinates -> spatial data (EPSG = 4326)
earthquakes_points <- st_as_sf(quakescsv, coords = c("longitude", "latitude"), crs = 4326)

# Create description
earthquakes_points$description = paste("Magnitude", earthquakes_points$mag)

# Read tectonic plates boundaries
tectonic_plates <- st_read("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fraxen/tectonicplates/master/GeoJSON/PB2002_boundaries.json")

# Create Leaflet web map
earthquakemap = leaflet(earthquakes_points) %>% 
  
  # Set map center
  setView(lng = 0, lat = 0, zoom = 2) %>%
    
  # Base groups
  addProviderTiles(providers$CartoDB.Positron, group = "Positron") %>%
  addTiles(group = "OSM") %>%
  
  # Overlay groups
  # Tectonic plates
  addPolylines(data=tectonic_plates, group = "Tectonic plates", weight = 2)%>%  
  
  # Earthquakes
  addCircleMarkers(
    data = earthquakes_points,
    group = "Earthquakes",
    popup = ~as.character(description),
    label = ~as.character(mag),
    radius = ~(mag)*2,
    color = "RED",
    stroke = FALSE, fillOpacity = 0.2
  ) %>%   
  
  # Layers control
  addLayersControl(
  baseGroups = c("Positron", "OSM"),
  overlayGroups = c("Earthquakes", "Tectonic plates"),
  options = layersControlOptions(collapsed = TRUE)
)

# Render Leaflet map
earthquakemap

# Save map to disk
saveWidget(widget = earthquakemap, file = "Earthquakemap.html")

More on Leaflet/R at https://rstudio.github.io/leaflet/.