OptaSense Delivers Latest QuantX DAS Interrogators to Caltech for Earthquake Monitoring

OptaSense has delivered a suite of the latest QuantX, 50km fully quantitative distributed fiber-optic sensors to Caltech to support their work in regional seismic monitoring.

Earthquakes are common in this seismically active area and pose risks to local communities and infrastructure. The varying activity patterns of earthquakes can be analyzed in detail with a large array of sensors, as provided by QuantX. The extensive sensing aperture captures arriving wave fields over a large area in great detail. Besides scientific research into the occurrence of earthquake patterns and mechanisms, these detailed variations can help estimate local soil conditions and thus local seismic risk. 

QuantX can deliver up to 50,000 seismic monitor channels at 1m pitch from a 50km long telecoms cable.  Partnered with OptaSense’s Light Acquisition software and Linux acquisition platform, 100% of the 3.5Gbps can be acquired without any data loss.  Spatial and Temporal decimation options allow this data rate to be tuned to storage requirement whilst preserving the optimum SNR.

OptaSense’s DXS browser also forms part of the deliverable to Caltech for Quality Control and visualization of acquired data.