The seismic wavefield as seen by distributed acoustic sensing arrays: local, regional and teleseismic sources

Abstract

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) exploiting fibre optic cables provides high-density sampling of the seismic wavefield. Scattered returns from multiple laser pulses provide local averages of strain rate over a finite gauge length. The nature of the signal depends on the orientation of the cable with respect to the passing seismic waves. For local events, the dominant part of the strain rate can be extracted from the difference of ground velocity resolved along the fibre at the ends of the gauge interval. For more distant events the response at seismic frequencies can be represented as the acceleration along the fibre modulated by the wave slowness resolved in the same direction, which means there is a strong dependence on cable orientation. Slowness–frequency representations of the wavefield provide insight, via modelling, into the character of the DAS wavefield in a range of situations from a local jump source, through a regional earthquake to teleseismic recording. The slowness-domain representation of the DAS signal allows analysis of the array response of cable configurations indicating a bias due to the slowness weighting associated with the effect of gauge length. Unlike seismometer arrays the response is not described by a single generic stacking function.