The mission of the National Strong-Motion Project is to supply measurements of how the ground and built environment behave during earthquake shaking to the earthquake engineering community,the scientific community, emergency managers, and public agencies,industry, media, or other users for the following purposes: improving engineering evaluations and design methods for facilities and systems; providing timely information for earthquake early warning,damage assessment, and emergency response action; and contributing to a greater understanding of the mechanics of earthquake rupture, and ground-motion characteristics,and earthquake effects.
Source: usgs.gov