GEOFON and its Role in Earthquake Monitoring and Tsunami Warning

Although originally not founded nor funded for earthquake monitoring, after the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster in December 2004 this became an important issue for the GEOFON program of GFZ Potsdam. The GEOFON earthquake information system is based on real-time data feeds of the GEOFON Extended Virtual Network (GEVN), a virtual network of about 300 stations worldwide. It comprises most of the GEOFON network stations and many partner network stations distributed globally. The data are acquired by Internet using the SeedLink real-time protocol, a worldwide defacto standard developed at GFZ. The system provides very timely but nevertheless precise automatic earthquake parameter information published on its web page or by email and SMS alerts. Due to its expertise, GEOFON was appointed to design and implement the seismological component of the German contribution to the Indian Ocean Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS). Beside the earthquake monitoring and the operation of a major global seismic broadband network GEOFON runs the largest seismological data archive in Europe. In addition, the cooperation and networking of European and other data centers both in terms of real-time data exchange and the setup of distributed data archive structures are promoted and actively supported. Large EU projects like MEREDIAN and NERIES coordinated by ORFEUS are basically relying on GEOFON’s innovative concepts and guidance.