Observatories and Research Facilities for EUropean Seismology

ORFEUS (Observatories and Research Facilities for EUropean Seismology), founded in 1987, is the non-profit foundation that aims at co-ordinating and promoting digital, broadband (BB) seismology in the European-Mediterranean area.

ORFEUS is funded and governed by corporate founders from 13 European countries forming the board of directors. Its activities are distributed between the ORFEUS Data Centre (ODC), gathering, archiving and providing waveform data, and four working groups, coordinating data availability and relevant developments. The daily activities are performed by its staff and steered by an executive Committee which is appointed by the Board of Directors. The ODC acts as regional data centre within the International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks (FDSN) and is hosted by the seismological division of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) in The Netherlands.

ORFEUS operates under the auspices of the European Seismological Commission (ESC) and cooperates closely with its sister organization in Europe, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC).