Early detection of earthquakes could be vastly improved by tapping into the world's internet network with a groundbreaking new algorithm, researchers say.
Early detection of earthquakes could be vastly improved by tapping into the world's internet network with a groundbreaking new algorithm, researchers say. Fiber optic cables used for cable television, telephone systems and the global web matrix now have the potential to help measure seismic rumblings thanks to recent technological advances, but harnessing this breakthrough has proved problematic.
Not only could this"exciting" advancement be integrated into existing earthquake early warning systems, it may also help detect seismic activity associated with erupting volcanoes, geothermal boreholes and glacier icequakes. "Excitingly, our method can combine fibre optic and traditional seismometer measurements, allowing fibre optic sensing to be included in existing earthquake early warning systems."
This is tantalising because fibre optic networks are ubiquitous in populated regions and even cross oceans, providing the possibility of far more detailed and effective seismic monitoring networks than those that currently exist.Real-world fibre network geometries are often complex -- and seismologists have no control over the geometry.
The other issue is that turning a fibre optic cable into thousands of sensors generates a lot of data. Processing this data in real time is essential for earthquake monitoring, so efficient data processing algorithms are required. "A key strength of this physics-based approach is that it works well even in noisy environments, since noise is generally less coherent than an earthquake signal," said Dr Hudson.He added:"Although we don't claim to have completely solved the large data volume issue, we present pragmatic ways to deal with this and our algorithm runs in real time for the datasets tested.
Detectors Physics Construction Earthquakes Natural Disasters Tsunamis Earth Science
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