When Earthquake in Mendosino is torn As a result of the coast of California in 2024, he broke from their funds, sent a 3-inch race on the tsunami towards the shore and canceled an exciting scientific experiment in the server room of the local police station in all places.
More than two years before the earthquake, scientists installed a device called “distributed acoustic probing” in the police station of the Arkat near the coast. The device launches a laser through the fiber -optical cables that provide the Internet service station, and feels how some of these laser light bends or bending when it returns to its source.
Now in A study published on Thursday in the journal ScienceResearchers announced that they were able to use data from a fiber cable to “depict” an earthquake in Mendocino – to determine the value, location and length of the gap.
The study shows how scientists can essentially turn fiber -optic cables into seismometers that return detailed data on earthquakes at the speed of light. External scientists said that this technology of rapidly developing technology can radically improve the earthquake in the early gate system, providing people with more time to search for safety, and can be the key to predicting catastrophic earthquakes in the future, if possible.
“This is the first study, which is the process of breaking the earthquake from the earthquake, which is so large,” said James Atterholt, geophysicist -research of the Geological Service of the United States, and the first author of the new study. “This shows that there is a potential for improving earthquakes of early warning using telecommunication fibers.”
The study suggests that researchers could bind their equipment into already extensive telecommunication cable networks, which, for example, are used by Google, Amazon and AT& T, to collect data in which seismometers are rare. Seismical monitoring of the sea bottom is especially expensive, and this can offer a more affordable option.
Emily Brodsky, a professor of land science at the University of California, Santa Curus, who did not participate in a study, said that “an early warning about the earthquake can be significantly improved tomorrow” if scientists can have widespread access to existing telecommunication networks.
“There is no technical obstacle. This is what the Atterholt study shows, ”Brodsky said in an interview with Brodsky.
And in a more distant future, the use of this technology using fiber -optic cables can help researchers determine whether some of the most catastrophic earthquakes can be predicted in advance.
Scientists have noticed intriguing patterns in the zones of underwater subduction In recent years, to some of the largest earthquakes, such as the earthquake of the value-8.1 of 2014 in Chile and an earthquake in Tokhoku 2011 and the tsunami in Japan, which affected Fukushima’s nuclear disaster.
Both of these massive earthquakes preceded the so -called “slow sliding” events that slowly release their energy for weeks or months, but do not cause tangible shaking people.
Scientists are not sure what to do with the template, because there are only a few examples, and earthquakes of the value-8.0 and the top are rare and rarely documented with in-depth monitoring.
If scientists were able to control seismic activities in telecommunication networks, they will have more chances to carefully document these events and determine if there are clear evidence of the model that can predict a future disaster.
“What do we want to know is that, slowly slipped out of the shortcomings before they glide quickly” and create a large earthquake, said Brodsky. “We continue to see these clues from afar. And we really need tools close and personal due to fault. ”
Brodsky said that it was unclear whether these earthquakes in the subduction zone are predictable, but the subject is a source of many scientific debate, which this new fiber -optic technology can help to settle.
For ten years, researchers have conducted seismic monitoring through fiber -optic cables. Brodsky said that this study demonstrates that the federal government, the scientific community and telecommunications suppliers must negotiate access.
“There are legal fears. They are concerned that someone is publishing a tool on an extremely valuable asset for them. They are concerned about damage to cables or someone, who is listening, ”Brodsky said about telecommunication companies. “However, it is clear that in the interests of public security there is this data, so this is a problem that needs to be solved at the normative level.”
Atterholt said that the technology of fiber -optic sounding would not supplant traditional seismometers, but it will complement the fact that the data already exist and will be cheaper than installing seismometers on the seabed. The use of cables for seismic monitoring usually does not affect their main goal of data transmission.
Jiaxuan LI, associate professor of the Department of Geophysics and Seismology at the University of Houston, which did not participate in this study, said that there are still technical obstacles to overcome the technology of distributed acoustic sounding (DAS). Right now, the technology can be used for distances up to 90 miles.
Lee said that a similar technology is used in Iceland to record how Magma moves in a volcano.
“We used DAS to fulfill early warnings about volcanic eruptions,” Lee said. “Now he works. Iceland's meteorological office uses this technology to release early warning. ”
The technology also helped to show that the earthquake in Mendosino was a rare “super -heart” earthquake when the fault of the fault occurs faster than its seismic waves travel. According to atterhont, this is akin to a “fighter exceeding the speed of sound” and produces a sound boom.
A new study unexpectedly revealed the scheme in Mendosino and can offer new clues to this phenomenon.
“We really didn’t naive, why some earthquakes are going from above, and some are not,” said Atterhont. “This can change how dangerous the earthquake is, although we also do not fully understand this relationship.”
