Optical polarization–based seismic and water wave sensing on transoceanic cables
Abstract
Seafloor geophysical instrumentation is challenging to deploy and maintain but critical for studying submarine earthquakes and Earth's interior. Emerging fiber-optic sensing technologies that can leverage submarine telecommunication cables present an opportunity to fill the data gap. We successfully sensed seismic and water waves over a 10,000-kilometer-long submarine cable connecting Los Angeles, California, and Valparaiso, Chile, by monitoring the polarization of regular optical telecommunication channels. We detected multiple moderate-to-large earthquakes along the cable in the 10-millihertz to 5-hertz band. We also recorded pressure signals from ocean swells in the primary microseism band, implying the potential for tsunami sensing. Our method, because it does not require specialized equipment, laser sources, or dedicated fibers, is highly scalable for converting global submarine cables into continuous real-time earthquake and tsunami observatories.
Additional Information
© 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works https://www.sciencemag.org/about/science-licenses-journal-article-reuse. This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License. Received for publication September 13, 2020. Accepted for publication January 11, 2021. We thank U. Holzle for initiating the subsea-based earthquake detection project. We thank B. Koley, V. Vusirikala, M. Salsi, M. Newland, T. Carlson, L. Bickford, S. Bhattacharya (Google LLC), M. Pan, J. Geyer (Acacia Inc.), S. Thodupunoori (Cisco Inc.), F. Santillo (Ciena Inc.), and Y. Svirko (University of Eastern Finland) for support and discussions. Earthquake information used in this study is from the U.S. Geological Survey. Z.Z. and J.C.C. are funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. A.M. is partially funded by the Italian Government through the INCIPICT project. Author contributions: Z.Z., M.C., and V.K. designed the work. M.C., V.K., and S.Y. collected the SOP data. A.M., V.K., R.M., M.C., and S.Y. conducted the analyses in optics. Z.Z., J.C., and A.M. led the work on earthquakes and ocean waves. All authors participated in the data interpretation. Z.Z., A.M., M.C., R.M., V.K., and S.Y. prepared the initial draft, and all authors critically revised and approved the manuscript. Competing interests: A U.S. patent has been filed related to this work. Data and materials availability: SOP data used in this study are openly available on https://data.caltech.edu/records/1668 (31). More information about reading and processing the data files can be obtained from the authors upon request. Seismic data at the conventional stations are from the International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks and the Global Seismic Network and downloaded through the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - abe6648_Zhan_SM.pdf
Files
| Name | Size | Download all |
|---|---|---|
|
md5:2d1dc6337b8d04f40cdb91ab7ea1aa97
|
9.7 MB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 108225
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.abe6648
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20210225-153844866
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Innovating City Planning through Information & Communications Technologies (INCIPICT)
- Created
-
2021-02-25Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Seismological Laboratory, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences