The Potential of DAS in Teleseismic Studies: Insights From the Goldstone Experiment

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a recently developed technique that has demonstrated its utility in the oil and gas industry. Here we demonstrate the potential of DAS in teleseismic studies using the Goldstone OpticaL Fiber Seismic experiment in Goldstone, California. By analyzing teleseismic...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2019-02, Vol.46 (3), p.1320-1328
Main Authors: Yu, Chunquan, Zhan, Zhongwen, Lindsey, Nathaniel J., Ajo‐Franklin, Jonathan B., Robertson, Michelle
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic imagery
Approximation
Broadband
Cables
Channels
distributed acoustic sensing
Earthquakes
Experiments
Fiber optics
Fields
Function analysis
Gas industry
Group velocity
Linear arrays
Moho
Motion sensors
Oil and gas industries
Oil and gas industry
Optical fibers
Phase velocity
Rayleigh waves
receiver functions
Seismic activity
Seismic data
Seismological data
Seismology
Seismometers
Sensor arrays
structural imaging
surface wave analyses
Time measurement
Travel time
Velocity
Velocity estimation
Wave phase
Waveforms
Wavelet analysis
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a recently developed technique that has demonstrated its utility in the oil and gas industry. Here we demonstrate the potential of DAS in teleseismic studies using the Goldstone OpticaL Fiber Seismic experiment in Goldstone, California. By analyzing teleseismic waveforms from the 10 January 2018 M7.5 Honduras earthquake recorded on ~5,000 DAS channels and the nearby broadband station GSC, we first compute receiver functions for DAS channels using the vertical‐component GSC velocity as an approximation for the incident source wavelet. The Moho P‐to‐s conversions are clearly visible on DAS receiver functions. We then derive meter‐scale arrival time measurements along the entire 20‐km‐long array. We are also able to measure path‐averaged Rayleigh wave group velocity and local Rayleigh wave phase velocity. The latter, however, has large uncertainties. Our study suggests that DAS will likely play an important role in many fields of passive seismology in the near future. Plain Language Summary Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a newly developed technique that transforms telecommunication fiber optic cables into linear arrays of ground‐motion sensors. It has received much attention in the oil and gas industry recently. In this study, we conduct the Goldstone OpticaL Fiber Seismic experiment in Goldstone, California, and explore the potential of DAS in passive seismology using distant earthquakes. We first show that seismic data from the 10 January 2018 M7.5 Honduras earthquake recorded by DAS are of high fidelity by comparing them with that on a nearby broadband seismometer. We then demonstrate the utility of DAS in passive earthquake seismology, including receiver function analysis, densely distributed travel time measurements, and Rayleigh wave group/phase velocity estimation. These applications can potentially be used to provide high‐resolution structural images of the crust and mantle. Thus, DAS will likely play an important role in many fields of passive seismology in the near future. Key Points We demonstrate the potential of DAS in teleseismic studies using the GOLFS experiment in Goldstone, California DAS recordings can be used for travel time measurement, receiver function, and surface wave analyses DAS will likely play an important role in many fields of passive seismology in the near future
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1029/2018GL081195