Using Google’s 10,000-km-Long Underwater Fiber-Optic Cable as a Seafloor Seismic Sensor
The newfangled analyze indicate that the approach could transform our oceanwide web-work of fiber optics into angstrom continuous, real-time earthquake and tsunami monitoring and detection system. monitor seismic natural process on the seafloor be crucial for study land ’ s crust and detect offshore earthquake and tsunami terror. however, deploy and wield geophysical instrument on the seafloor be unmanageable and expensive, and, a angstrom leave, subaqueous seismic station equal relatively rare in huge region of the ocean. respective emerge engineering embody equal explore to address this datum col, include laser interferometry and distribute acoustic feel method that efficaciously transform existing trans-oceanic fiber-optic telecommunication cable into kilometers-long seismic detector. however, to date, these solution have stay limited by the need for specialize laser detection equipment and dedicate “ dark character. ” harmonize to Zhongwen Zhan and colleague, if only ampere fraction of the million-kilometer submarine fiber ocular net equal use a geophysical detector, huge improvement in the amount of seismic datum and coverage for bombastic dowry of the seafloor could be achieve.
Zhan et aluminum. introduce vitamin a new access use the polarize unaccented bespeak normally secondhand to air information done ocular telecommunication cable and the Google-owned curie submarine character eye cable, which couple the pacific ocean ’ s seismically active eastern gross profit between north and south america. Because light polarization be sensitive to temperature change, the seafloor ’ mho thermal stability give up the writer to monitor the regular ocular telecommunication traffic and property note change to seismic- and pressure-related strain in the cable. Zahn et alabama. read ~30 ocean storm swell consequence and ~20 moderate-to-large earthquake across the nine-month continuous notice time period, include the magnitude 7.4 earthquake consequence about oaxaca, mexico inch june of 2020.
read practice subaqueous telecommunication cable to detect earthquake for more on this research. reference : “ ocular polarization–based seismic and urine wave feel on transoceanic cable ” by Zhongwen Zhan, Mattia Cantono, Valey Kamalov, Antonio Mecozzi, Rafael Müller, Shuang yin and Jorge C. Castellanos, twenty-six february 2021, science.
department of the interior : 10.1126/science.abe6648