MSM Ocean, Sonardyne Partner on Tsunami Early Warning System

MSM Ocean and Sonardyne agreed to team on the supply of a complete solution for warning coastal communities of a tsunami.

The agreement combines MSM Ocean’s experience in oceanographic measurement buoys, on-board data processing and telecommunications with Sonardyne’s precise deep water pressure measurement and acoustic through-water telemetry capabilities.  Together, these allow minute changes in deep water pressure at the seafloor that indicate a tsunami to be reliably detected, triggering a direct alert to national emergency organisations via acoustic and satellite communications, all within seconds.

The tsunami early warning system is fully International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) compliant and can be deployed in areas of up to 7,000 m water depth.

Through the teaming agreement, MSM Ocean and Sonardyne have also agreed to explore further possibilities for combining their technologies in support of remotely connecting ocean scientists to their instruments on the seafloor via buoys.

Sonardyne has been supplying integrated Bottom Pressure Recorders (BPRs) configured for deep water tsunami detection to organizations around the world since 2007. For the past decade, these have been integrated into MSM Ocean’s buoy-based Tsunami Early Warning Systems, which have been successfully installed along the Pacific coast of South America.

This includes two systems deployed off Ecuador which detected the January 15 tsunami, caused by the Hunga-Tonga submarine volcano eruption, 10,000 km away in the South Pacific. Alerts were raised by MSM Ocean’s buoys with the National Tsunami Warning Center of Ecuador just 35 seconds after the wave was detected by Sonardyne’s Bottom Pressure Recorder.