The future of passive seismic acquisition

Hammond, James; England, Richard; Rawlinson, Nicholas; Curtis, Andrew; Sigloch, Karin; Harmon, Nicholas; Baptie, Brian

doi:10.1093/astrogeo/atz102

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…By using in-land instruments and relying on the existing fiber cables (which cover a significant portion of the seafloor and reach locations of high geophysical interest), these methods aim to reduce deployment costs, ease maintenance, and enable continuous monitoring of the seafloor. Indeed, optical fiber strain sensing technologies have proven successful in geophysical measurements for both in-land and near-shore applications [4][5][6][7][8] . Long-haul transoceanic cables, however, introduce unique challenges that cannot be tackled using the prevailing techniques applied for in-land cables (i.e., distributed optical fiber sensing 5,9 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Localization of Seismic Waves in Submarine Fiber Optics Using Polarization-only Measurements

Varughese

Mertz

Kamalov

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Monitoring seismic activity on the ocean floor is a critical yet challenging task, largely due to the difficulties of physical deployment and maintenance of sensors in these remote areas. Optical fiber sensing techniques are well-suited for this task, given the presence of existing transoceanic telecommunication cables. However, current techniques capable of interrogating the entire length of transoceanic fibers are either incompatible with conventional telecommunication lasers or are limited in their ability to identify the position of the seismic wave. In this work, we propose and demonstrate a method to measure and localize seismic waves in transoceanic cables using only conventional telecommunication transponders and detectors, by launching pulses of changing polarization. We demonstrate our technique by measuring and localizing seismic waves from a magnitude Mw 6.0 earthquake (Guerrero, Mexico) using a submarine cable connecting Los Angeles, California and Santiago, Chile. Our approach introduces a cost-effective and practical solution that can potentially increase the density of geophysical measurements in hard-to-reach regions, improving disaster preparedness and response, with minimal additional demands on existing infrastructure.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Localization of Seismic Waves in Submarine Fiber Optics Using Polarization-only Measurements

Varughese

Mertz

Kamalov

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…Campaigns like that proposed, where data are acquired autonomously and in near real-time, and instrument lifespans measured in years instead of weeks or months, will generate data sets that nicely complement those returned by MER-MAID. Beyond gliders, still other solutions to the logistical problem of data recovery are currently being tested. These include ocean-bottom systems that periodically release data pods from the seafloor, each with a self-contained telecommunications unit to relay data via satellite upon surfacing (Hammond et al 2019). Finally, while the age where the cables themselves may act as seismic sensors appears to have arrived (e.g.…”

Section: Introduction and Historical Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recording earthquakes for tomographic imaging of the mantle beneath the South Pacific by autonomous MERMAID floats

Simon¹,

Irving²,

Simons³

2022

Preprint

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We present the first 16 months of data returned from a mobile array of 16 freely-floating diving instruments, named MERMAID for Mobile Earthquake Recording in Marine Areas by Independent Divers, launched in French Polynesia in late 2018. Our 16 are a subset of the 50 MERMAIDs deployed over a number of subsequent cruises in this vast and understudied oceanic province as part of the collaborative South Pacific Plume Imaging and Modeling (SPPIM) project, under the aegis of the international EarthScope-Oceans consortium. Our objective is the hydroacoustic recording, from within the oceanic water column, of the seismic wavefield generated by earthquakes worldwide, and the nearly real-time transmission by satellite of these data, collected directly above and on the periphery of the South Pacific Superswell. This region, characterized by anomalously elevated oceanic crust and myriad seamounts, is believed to be the surface expression of a deeply-rooted mantle plume. Tomographically imaging Earth's mantle under the South Pacific with data from these novel instruments requires a careful examination of the earthquake-to-MERMAID travel-times of the high-frequency P-wave detections within the windows selected for reporting by the discrimination algorithms on board. We discuss a workflow suitable for a fast-growing mobile sensor database to pick the relevant arrivals, match them to known earthquakes in the global earthquake catalogs, calculate their travel-time residuals with respect to global seismic reference models, characterize their quality, and estimate their uncertainty. We detail seismicity rates as recorded by MERMAID over 16 months, break these statistics down by magnitude to quantify the completeness of our catalog, and discuss magnitude-versus-distance relations of detectability for our network. The projected lifespan of an individual MERMAID is five years, allowing us to estimate the final size of the data set that will be available for future study. To prove their utility for seismic tomography we compare the MERMAID data quality against "traditional" land seismometers and their low-cost Raspberry Shake counterparts, using waveforms recovered from instrumented island stations in the geographic neighborhood of our floats. Finally, we provide the first analyses of travel-time anomalies for the new ray paths sampling the mantle under the South Pacific over the first 16 months of operation of our array.

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“…However, they suffer from poor scalability as their deployment, maintenance, and operation require great and ongoing effort and resources, particularly in remote areas. In the last decade we have seen a shift in seismic instrumentation with the development of cheap, portable, and stand-alone geophones (Hammond et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

PubDAS: a PUBlic Distributed Acoustic Sensing datasets repository for geosciences

Spica¹,

Ajo‐Franklin²,

Beroza³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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During the past few years, Distributing Acoustic Sensing (DAS) has become an invaluable tool for recording high-fidelity seismic wavefields with great spatiotemporal resolutions. However, the considerable amount of data generated during DAS experiments limits their distribution with the broader scientific community. Such a bottleneck inherently slows down the pursuit of new scientific discoveries in geosciences. Here, we introduce PubDAS, the first large-scale open-source repository where several DAS datasets from multiple experiments are publicly shared. PubDAS currently hosts eight datasets covering a variety of geological settings (e.g., urban centers, underground mine, seafloor), spanning from several days to several years, offering both continuous and triggered active source recordings, and totalling up to ~90 Tb of data. This manuscript describes these datasets, their metadata, and how to access and download them. Some of these datasets have only been shallowly explored, leaving the door open for new discoveries in Earth sciences and beyond.

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The future of passive seismic acquisition

Cited by 13 publications

References 49 publications

Localization of Seismic Waves in Submarine Fiber Optics Using Polarization-only Measurements

Localization of Seismic Waves in Submarine Fiber Optics Using Polarization-only Measurements

Recording earthquakes for tomographic imaging of the mantle beneath the South Pacific by autonomous MERMAID floats

PubDAS: a PUBlic Distributed Acoustic Sensing datasets repository for geosciences

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