Europe’s first Tsunami station located off Algarve coast

19 investigative scientists boarded an Italian research ship and set sail from Faro’s port, taking with them the parts of an iron structure that will become Europe’s first Tsunami warning central.

Over the weekend the team aimed to lay the ‘observatory’ on the seabed, located approximately 150 kilometres from Sagres, near the Gulf of Cadiz.

Baptised Geostar, the device is equipped with highly sensitive seismographic sensors able to effectively carry out geological and geophysical readings of seismic activity. In the event of a quake, the apparatus can also pinto its exact location and determine the probability of a Tsunami, from the bottom of the sea.

For one year it will monitor the entire Algarve area, which is notorious for its seismic and tectonic activity.

In 1755, Portugal’s largest earthquake to date took 15 minutes before it was felt in Sagres and cause nationwide destruction and devastation. One of its most significant consequences was a deformation that occurred on the sea’s bed, at 11 metre’s depth, and eventually caused a giant wave to wash the country.

“It is one of the largest experiments of its kind in the whole world”, says Paolo Favali, a scientist with the National Geophysical and Volcanic Institute of Rome, Italy, which integrates the project that is financed by the European Union.

Weighing in at 1,200 tons, ‘Geostar’ measures 87 metres in length, 11 metres in width, and has an 18metre mast.