Fiber-Optic Seismology

Abstract

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is an emerging technology that repurposes a fiber-optic cable as a dense array of strain sensors. This technology repeatedly pings a fiber with laser pulses, measuring optical phase changes in Rayleigh backscattered light. DAS is beneficial for studies of fine-scale processes over multi-kilometer distances, long-term time-lapse monitoring, and deployment in logistically challenging areas (e.g., high temperatures, power limitations, land access barriers). These benefits have motivated a decade of applications in subsurface imaging and microseismicity monitoring for energy production and carbon sequestration. DAS arrays have recorded microearthquakes, regional earthquakes, teleseisms, and infrastructure signals. Analysis of these wavefields is enabling earthquake seismology where traditional sensors were sparse, as well as structural and near-surface seismology. These studies improved understanding of DAS instrument response through comparison with traditional seismometers. More recently, DAS has been used to study cryosphere systems, marine geophysics, geodesy, and volcanology. Further advancement of geoscience using DAS requires several community efforts related to instrument access, training, outreach, and cyberinfrastructure. ▪  DAS is a seismic acquisition technology repurposing fiber optics as arrays of dynamic strain sensors at 1- to 10-m spacing over kilometers. ▪  Easy DAS installations have availed time-lapse geophysical sensing in formerly inaccessible sites: urban, icy, and offshore areas. ▪  High-frequency wavefields recorded by DAS are analyzed with array-based methods to characterize seismic sources and image the subsurface. ▪  DAS has shown low-frequency sensitivity in the laboratory and field, for slow hydrodynamic and geodynamic processes.