Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2018

Here's Why The Internet Could Be The Most Powerful Earthquake Detection System Ever

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-internet-itself-most-powerful-earthquake-detection-system-ever-fibre-optic-seismic PETER DOCKRILL 6 JUL 2018 (spainter_vfx/iStock) The internet isn't your phone. It's not Instagram, YouTube, or Netflix. Behind those apparitions, the internet is actually a  sprawling matrix  of hundreds of undersea data cables, criss-crossing the ocean for some 885,000 km ( 550,000 miles ). That's where your Facebook and FOMO come from. But those hidden conduits aren't just useful for relaying data - this massive web of infrastructure could also give us an unprecedented network for detecting earthquakes, new research reveals. In a new study led by volcanologist Philippe Jousset from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, researchers sent pulses of laser light through a 15-kilometre (9.3 mile) stretch of conventional optical fibre internet cable in Iceland, which they used as a proxy to measure seismic activity. "Ou

Fiber Optic Cables as Undersea Seismic Monitors?

https://www.ofsoptics.com/fiber-optic-cables-as-undersea-seismic-monitors/ Detecting ocean-floor seismic activity is crucial to our understanding of the interior structure and dynamic behavior of the Earth. However, with 70% of the planet’s surface covered by water and only a handful of permanent, ocean-bottom seismometer stations, very little overall seismic activity is actually recorded. Now, a group of researchers from the United Kingdom, Italy and Malta have found a way to use submarine fiber optic cables already deployed on the ocean floor as seismic detectors. In a paper published in the journal  Science , the research group outlines how they discovered this capability and how it would operate. Giuseppe Marra, a member of the group, was testing an underground fiber cable between two locations in the United Kingdom. Noticing a small slowdown in signal delivery, he traced it to tiny vibrations bending the light. He then determined that the vibrations were caused by a remot

Underwater fiber-optic cables could moonlight as earthquake sensors

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/underwater-fiber-optic-cables-could-moonlight-earthquake-sensors BY  MARIA TEMMING   2:00PM, JUNE 14, 2018 The seafloor cables that ferry internet traffic across oceans could be used to collect data Magazine issue:  Vol. 194, No. 2, July 21, 2018, p. 8 MOTION OF THE OCEAN FLOOR   The network of submarine fiber-optic cables that deliver work e-mails and cat videos to computers around the world could double as undersea earthquake detectors. Existing cables are shown in purple; planned cables are in blue. The global network of seafloor cables may be good for more than ferrying digital communication between continents. These fiber-optic cables  could also serve as underwater earthquake detectors , researchers report online June 14 in  Science . “It’s a very exciting proposition,” says Barbara Romanowicz, a seismologist at the University of California, Berkeley and the Collège de France in Paris. Almost all seismi