Dual Use Global Tsunami Monitoring Network and Underwater GNSS

Abstract:

Earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, slumps, meteorological events and asteroid impacts can generate tsunamis. However, the present tsunami monitoring network is designed to detect tsunamis generated only by subduction zone earthquakes. A global tsunami monitoring system will be presented to detect tsunamis from ANY source within 20 minutes of origin time. Real-time tsunami data from the monitoring system can be used to forecast coastal flooding in advance of tsunami arrival, thus saving lives through early warnings. The global tsunami monitoring system could also be used to expand the coverage of global navigation by satellites to the seafloor of the world’s oceans. Since oceans cover over 70% of the surface planet earth, such an expansion of coverage would revolutionize earth sciences as well as tsunami monitoring for all generation mechanisms. A demonstration project is proposed to test and evaluate the dual use concept.