Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART®)

Bottom Pressure Recorder (BPR) Data

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. In 2003, operational responsibility of DART transitioned from PMEL to the National Data Buoy Center.

The high-resolution, edited BPR Data, along with accompanying metadata, from 1986 to 2004 can be downloaded, viewed and plotted from this site. More recent data is available, however it has not been edited. If you are interested in viewing the raw data files, please contact the NGDC DART Data manager directly.

The data from the buoys include several signals, including tides and earthquake waves. In the open ocean, tsunamis are very small (a few centimeters), but tides can be large (~1 meter) and earthquake waves can be very large (several meters). Therefore, to see the tsunami, the data need to be filtered to remove signals of tidal or earthquake frequencies. NGDC is in the process of providing a way to do this online.

The real-time DART® Data are available from the NOAA National Data Buoy Center.

Real-Time DART® data - National Data Buoy Center (NDBC)

DART® Locations - existing and planned deployments