GPS shield' will mean faster tsunami alerts

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* 15 September 2007
* NewScientist.com news service

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* German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) project

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A "GPS shield" that works in real time could save lives by quickly warning of potential tsunamis.

The German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) is being developed by a team led by Jörn Lauterjung of the National Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany. Unlike a GPS method proposed last year, which detects seismic waves transmitted through the Earth's crust to distant receivers, the new ground-based system takes real-time measurements of vertical ground motion - the type of fault movement more likely to produce tsunamis (Journal of Geophysical Research, DOI: 10.1029/2006JB004640).

To protect the Indian Ocean region, the proposed shield would include an array of 18 GPS stations.
From issue 2621 of