OptaSense was recently contracted by the Japan Agency for Marine Earth-Science & Technology (JAMSTEC) to conduct a long-range data collection project on a subsea seismic monitoring cable while the agency conducted air gun trials from a surface ship. The project provided an opportunity to take advantage of the long-range quantitative data provided by the advanced OptaSense QuantX interrogator unit. The QuantX system delivers long-range quantitative data performance with high-fidelity and sensitivity out to a range of 50km.
The results of the project, a world’s first of its kind, has now been published in Nature’s Scientific Reports by JAMSTEC with OptaSense co-authors Rob Ellwood, Victor Yartsev & Martin Karrenbach. This is a tremendous honor for OptaSense and to be published in Nature is recognized as significant milestone in any scientific career.
The paper, Detection of Hydroacoustic Signals on a Fiber-optic Submarine Cable, concludes that distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) can be used for hydroacoustic surveys and was able to monitor the ocean microseismic background along the total 120km length of the cable. The results of the project opens the door to further use of the QuantX system for critical applications such as tsunami monitoring and remote earthquake detection.
