World Data Center / National Geophysical Data Center's Tsunami Data Archive

The WDC for Solid Earth Geophysics (including tsunamis) is operated by NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC). NGDC is one of three environmental data centers within the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS). Operating both World and National Data Centers, WDC/NGDC is now providing the long-term archive, data management, and access to national and global tsunami data for research and mitigation of tsunami hazards. Archive responsibilities include the global historic tsunami event and runup database, the bottom pressure recorder data, and access to event-specific tide-gauge data, as well as other related hazards and bathymetric data and information. The WDC/NGDC Worldwide Tsunami Database includes more than 2,400 events since 2,000 BC and more than 7,200 locations where tsunamis were observed. Times of generating earthquakes, tsunami arrival times, travel times, first motion of the wave, and wave periods are included in the database. The WDC/NGDC Worldwide Significant Earthquake Database includes information for more than 6,600 destructive earthquakes from 2,000 B.C. to the present. In the 1980s, NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) developed deep ocean tsunameters for the early detection, measurement, and real-time reporting of tsunamis in the open ocean. The tsunameters were developed by PMEL's Project DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis). A DART system consists of a seafloor bottom pressure recording (BPR) system capable of detecting tsunamis as small as 1 cm, and a moored surface buoy for real-time communications. An acoustic link is used to transmit data from the BPR on the seafloor to the surface buoy. The data are then relayed via a GOES satellite link to ground stations for immediate dissemination to NOAA's Tsunami Warning Centers and PMEL. These systems were deployed near regions with a history of tsunami generation, to ensure measurement of the waves as they propagate towards threatened U.S. coastal communities and to acquire data critical to real-time forecasts. Currently, there are eight BPRs located near Alaska, Hawaii, Chili, and in the equatorial Pacific. The WDC/NGDC is now providing access to bottom pressure recorder (BPR) data from 1986 to the present. The BPR database includes pressure and temperature data from the ocean floor. All of the WDC/NGDC tsunami and significant earthquake databases are stored in a relational database management system. These data are accessible over the Web as tables, reports, interactive maps, and custom CD-ROMs.