Underwater cable repurposed as earthquake sensor

A new technique that turns undersea power and telecom cables into environmental sensors could revolutionise the monitoring of the earth in remote locations, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have said.

Today, seas and oceans remain mostly unmonitored with only a handful of permanent ocean-floor sensors existing globally.

The team showed the detection of earthquakes and ocean signals, such as waves and currents, on individual spans between repeaters spread across the entire transatlantic connection. The optical fibre in each span acted as a sensor.

Up to 12 sensors were implemented along the cable, although future upgrades will increase this number to 129.