Submarine Cables Offer Billions of Potential Seismic Sensors

According to the French National Research Institue (IRD), scientists have for the first time shown that it is possible to detect the propagation of seismic waves on the seafloor using submarine telecommunications optical fiber cables. According to their research, this existing infrastructure could be used to detect earthquakes, as well as swell and underwater noise. The existing submarine cables will offer potential as billions of seismic sensors.

The results are published in Nature Communications by researchers from the CNRS, OCA, IRD and Université Côte d’Azur working together in the Géoazur laboratory, in collaboration with Fébus Optics and the Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille (CNRS/Aix-Marseille Université).

The ocean floor is criss-crossed by 1.2 million kilometers of telecommunications cables made up of optical fibres, which facilitate much of our communications. However they could soon take on a new role, that of detecting acoustic and seismic waves, say the researchers.

The scientists used a 41 km-long cable deployed off the coast of Toulon in southern France to retrieve data from the sensors of the MEUST-NUMerEnv2 underwater observatory, located at a depth of 2500 m. The method they developed takes advantage of small impurities in the optical fibers, which return part of the light they carry back to the transmitter.

By stretching or contracting the fiber, the passage of a seismic or acoustic wave alters the distance between these impurities, and thus the backscattered signal, by a tiny amount. The team needed to prove that these differences were detectable since, in submarine cables, the optical fibers are protected by several insulating layers.

Furthermore, the measuring points are also sensitive to waves that travel through the ocean, such as those produced by swell. The authors recorded the impact of waves on the seafloor near the coast, as well as their effect on the abyssal plain, where they generate what is known as “seismic background noise.”

The sensors made it possible to observe for the first time how these very small vibrations, which constantly interact with the Earth’s interior, are produced, enabling geophysicists to probe its structure. The researchers believe that an optical telecom cable could in the same way detect underwater noise produced by ships and cetaceans (whales, dolphins and the like).

The researchers conclude, “Faced with the logistic and financial challenge of deploying instrumentation on the seafloor, telecom cables could provide a way of improving our understanding of this terra incognita covering two thirds of the Earth’s surface, and address a wide range of scientific and societal issues, such as earthquakes, coastal erosion, interaction between life, the oceans and the solid Earth.

“A certain number of cables currently in operation will be phased out by telecommunications operators over the coming years. Thanks to this research, they could soon take on a second life.”

Reference: Distributed sensing of earthquakes and ocean-solid Earth interactions on seafloor telecom cables, Anthony Sladen, Diane Rivet, Jean-Paul Ampuero, Louis De Barros, Yann Hello, Gaëtan Calbris, Patrick Lamare. Nature Communications, 18 décembre 2019. DOI : 10.1038/s41467-019-13793-z

Source: ird.fr