GEOFON

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Cite as

Loureiro, Afonso; Bozzi, Emanuele; Barari, Amin; Affatati, Alice; Jousset, Philippe (2026): Geo-INQUIRE Transnational Access at Ella-Link GeoLab Madeira testbed. GFZ Data Services. Dataset/DAS. https://doi.org/10.14470/0I898714.

Identifier

10.14470/0I898714

DataCite metadata

HTML | JSON | XML | INSPIRE | Local XML source file

Terms/rights

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Available since 2026-06-30

Creator(s)

Loureiro, Afonso ^a; Bozzi, Emanuele ^b; Barari, Amin ^c; Affatati, Alice ^d; Jousset, Philippe ^e
a Agencia Regional para o Desenvolvimento da Investigacao Tecnologia e Inovacao (ARDITI), Funchal, Portugal
^b University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
^c Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
^d National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics, Trieste, Italy
^e GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany

Description

• (Abstract) GeoLab (https://ella.link/geolab/) is an infrastructure consisting of a spare fiber pair built into the Funchal branch of the Ella-Link submarine telecommunications cable, which stretches out for 57 km, south-east from the coast of Madeira, Portugal, into the Atlantic Ocean starting at the Praia Formosa CLS. The GeoLab facility is a joint effort of EllaLink, EMACOM, FCCN, GÉANT and ARDITI, providing an OptoDAS interrogator and enabling continuous Distributed Acousting Sensing of the cable, providing researchers with a facility able to host optical instruments to make recordings of strain and temperature from the dark fiber in the Atlantic. Optical equipment connected to the cable allows to measure fiber deformation of the submarine cable, with applications for seismology (earthquake detection and characterization, structure of the Earth interior), oceanography (seabed/solid earth interaction, oceanic currents, proxy to temperature at the sea floor), marine mammals monitoring, anthropogenic noise, and possibly proxies to other geophysical observables. The projects ATLANTIDAS, DEEP-SENSE, and OASIS, exploited this dataset to characterize seafloor earthquakes, study the long-term interactions of the cable with sediments, and marine soundscapes. This dataset was obtained in the context of a Transnational Access Call (TA3-86-1) within Geo-Inquire. It includes 16 weeks of continuous waveform data acquired between 2024 and 2026 with the following parameters: 500 Hz sampling rate, 10 metre gauge length, and 5 metre channel spacing. The cable position has been obfuscated for security purposes. The provided coordinates have been degraded to a precision of around 200 metres, consistent with coordinates available from public documents and official cartography sources. To obtain precision coordinates contact the main PI. Selected channels of the raw DAS data have been converted to miniseed by means of "simpleDAS", a small python code provided by the OptoDAS manufacturer (ASN), and Obspy. The former to extract the data from the proprietary format stored in the interrogator; the latter to encode it in miniseed in pico strain units. These converted data is available from the GEOFON data centre, under network code 5V2024.

Title

Geo-INQUIRE Transnational Access at Ella-Link GeoLab Madeira testbed

Publisher

GFZ Data Services

Publication year

2026

Resource type

Dataset / DAS

Dates

1. Collected 2026-03-22
2. Submitted 2026-05-27
3. Issued 2026-05-28
4. Created 2026-05-28
5. Available 2026-06-30

Place(s)

1. Madeira Island

Contributor(s)

• Hosting institution: GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany
• Data manager: GEOFON Data Centre
• Sponsors: https://ella.link/geolab/; https://submerse.eu/; https://www.arditi.pt/; Emacom; https://fccn.pt; https://geant.org; https://fct.pt
• Project members: ARDITI, Funchal, Portugal ; Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Lisbon, Portugal ; EMACOM – Telecomunicações da Madeira; National Scientific Computing Unit (FCCN)

Subjects

• SeisData terms: DAS Geophysics MiniSEED Strain Temporary
• GCMD keywords: Marine geophysics Earthquakes

Funding reference(s)

1. European Commission (Geo-INQUIRE101058518)

Language

en

Sizes

1. 3000GB

Reference(s)

1. (References) 5v2024 S3 Object Storage with raw data, https://s3.gfz-potsdam.de/dog-ext.geofon.5v2024 S3 Information

FDSN network code

5V

Network dates

2024–2027

Data time range

2024–2026

Station count

555

Seismic metadata

fdsnws-station FDSN StationXML SC3 XML

To retrieve waveform data and metadata (including instrument responses) for this and other seismic networks, see here. Network (data set) values are taken from DataCite XML from 2026-08-25 with Metadata Properties version 4.4. Contact us if you are the PI and wish to make changes. Old-style network page for this network here.

Station List for Network Code 5V