When the Mendocino earthquake broke the Californian coast in 2024, he rocked the houses of their foundations, sent a 3 -inch tsunami to shore and hit a fascinating scientific experience – in the server room of a local police station, of all places.
More than two years before the earthquake, scientists installed a device called “interrogator of distributed acoustic detection” at the Arcata police station near the coast. The device pulls a laser through the fiber optic cables that provide an internet service at the station and detects how part of this laser Frensine or bends when it comes back to its source.
Now, in a study published Thursday in the journal Science, the researchers announced that they could have used the fiber optic cable data for “image” the earthquake of Mendocin – determining the magnitude, the location and the length of the rupture.
The study shows how scientists can essentially transform fiber optic cables into seismometers which refer detailed data on earthquakes at the speed of light. External scientists have said that this rapid development technology could considerably improve early alert systems for earthquakes, giving people more time to seek security, and could be essential to predict catastrophic earthquakes in the future, if possible.
“This is the first study that imagines a process of breaking the earthquake of an earthquake which is also important,” said James Aterholt, research geological geological survey, and the first author of the new study. “This shows that it is possible to improve early alerts of earthquakes with telecommunications fibers.”
The study suggests that researchers could burst their equipment to large telecommunications cable networks – which are used by Google, Amazon and AT&T, for example – to collect data where seismometers are rare. Seismic surveillance of the seabed is particularly expensive, which could offer a more affordable option.
Emily Brodsky, professor of earth sciences at the University of California in Santa Cruz, who was not involved in research, said that “the early alert of the earthquake could be considerably improved tomorrow” if scientists were able to negotiate generalized access to existing telecommunications networks.
“There is no technical obstacle over there. This is what Atterholt’s study demonstrates,” said Brodsky in an interview.
And in the more distant future, the use of this technology with fiber optic cables could help researchers determine whether some of the most catastrophic earthquakes could be predicted in advance.
Scientists have noticed intriguing schemes in the underwater subduction areas in recent years before some of the largest earthquakes, such as the Magniude-8,1 2014 earthquake in Chile and the Tohoku 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which led to Fukushima’s nuclear disaster.
These two massive earthquakes were preceded by what are called “slow shift” events, which slowly release their energy during the weeks or months, but do not cause perceptible tremors to humans.
Scientists do not know what to make the reason because there are only a few examples, and earthquakes of magnitude 8.0 and more are rare and little documented with in -depth monitoring.
If scientists were able to monitor seismic activity on telecommunications networks, they would have better chances to document these events closely and determine if there are clear evidence of a model that could predict the future disaster.
“What we want to know is if the faults slide slowly before they slide quickly” and produce a large earthquake, “said Brodsky. “We continue to see these clues from afar. And what we really need are the close and personal instruments on the fault. ”
Brodsky said that it is not clear if these large earthquakes in the subduction area are predictable, but the subject is the source of many scientific debates, which this new fiber optic technology could help.
Researchers have been pursuing seismic surveillance through fiber optic cables for about a decade. Brodsky said this research shows that the federal government, the scientific community and telecommunications suppliers should negotiate on access.
“There are legitimate concerns. They are worried about anyone sticking an instrument on an extremely precious asset for them. They are concerned about cables or someone listening,” said Brodsky about telecommunications companies. “However, it is quite clear that it is also in the interest of public security to have this data, it is therefore a problem which must be resolved at the regulatory level.”
Atterholt said that fiber optic detection technology would not supplant traditional seismometers, but would complete the data that already exists and would be less expensive than installing seismometers on the seabed. The use of cables for seismic surveillance generally does not affect their main objective of data transmission.
Jiaxuan Li, assistant professor of geophysics and seismology at the University of Houston, who was not involved in this research, said that there were still technical obstacles to overcome to use the distributed acoustic detection technology (DAS) offshore. Currently, technology can be used for distances up to around 90 miles.
Li said that similar technology is used in Iceland to record how the magma moves in volcanoes.
“We used the DAS to make early warnings for volcanic eruptions,” said Li. “It is operational now. Iceland’s weather office uses this technology to issue an early warning. ”
Technology also helped to reveal that the Mendocino earthquake was a rare “Supershear” earthquake, when the flawer fracture occurs faster than its seismic waves move. This is similar to a “hunting jet exceeding the speed of sound” and the production of a sound boom, said Aterholt.
The new research has unexpectedly revealed the model to Mendocin and could offer new clues to this phenomenon.
“We haven’t really explained why some earthquakes become Supershear and why some do not do it,” said Aterholt. “This can modify how dangerous the earthquake is, although we do not completely understand this relationship either.”
