In a press release yesterday, the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) highlighted the International Monitoring System's (IMS) contribution of vital data to the rapid alerts issued by tsunami warning centers following the catastrophic 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile early on February 27.
About 20 seismic and hydroacoustic IMS stations sent data in real time to warning centres in the Pacific, helping the centers issue alerts to Latin American countries and the wider Pacific region. "The CTBTO monitoring data has proven to be the speediest and most reliable data, with up to three minutes lead time compared to other data," the press release said.
In addition to verifying compliance with the CTBT and detecting nuclear tests through a 337 facility network (of which 90% of the stations are complete or under construction), the IMS contributes to several civilian and research aims, including tsunami warning, research of the Earth's core, earthquake and volcano monitoring, and climate change and atmospheric monitoring and research.