Ancient technology inspires tsunami early warning and earthquake detection

Newswise – A million kilometers of fiber-optic cable lie on the ocean floor, carrying communications signals across vast expanses of ocean to keep the whole world connected. A new international collaboration, including experts from the University of Texas at Austin, aims to turn them into a global early warning system for tsunamis and earthquakes, as well as an array of sensors to monitor unexplained changes in temperature.

Researchers from the Oden Institute of Engineering and Computational Science and the Institute of Geophysics are part of a team developing reliable Science Monitoring and Communications (SMART) cables, which will consist of sensors “mounted” on existing and expanding subsea telecommunications infrastructure. The sensors will allow for low-cost global monitoring of the deep ocean to detect temperature, pressure and seismic acceleration – the rate of change in the Earth’s natural vibrations. The data provided can inform scientists of upcoming underwater earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis, as well as track any long-term changes in the state of the ocean.

“This remarkable project will transform practical cables connecting communications and commerce into a global scientific tool of profound importance to every person on Earth,” said Robert Kirshner, director of the science program at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

These efforts will support the joint United Nations SMART Cables task force working to realize the SMART Cable concept by uniting experts from around the world and across disciplines. The task force is led by the project’s principal investigator, Bruce Howe of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

The Oden Institute’s role in this project, according to Patrick Heimbach of the Computational Research in Ice and Ocean Systems (CRIOS) group, and a professor at the University of Texas’ Jackson School of Geosciences, is to test the ability of proposed SMART Cables to adequately address questions of oceanographers and geophysicists. The researchers will run a series of numerical simulations called Monitoring System Simulations that will determine the quality of data that can be obtained from SMART Cables observations and how to improve it. Initially targeting an area around the island states of Vanuatu and New Caledonia, the long-term goal is to develop a simulation framework that supports network design on a global scale to reveal globally significant processes behind ocean change.

“Our focus here is on bottom pressure, temperature and acoustic data, and their value in ocean climate monitoring,” explained Heimbach, who studies the global circulation of the oceans and its role in climate.

More than 70% of volcanic eruptions occur under the sea, hidden from scientists’ view by thousands of feet of water. When hot magma comes into direct contact with cold ocean waters, violent eruptions, known as a “fuel coolant reaction,” can lead to intense reactions, similar to weapon-grade chemical explosions.

The international effort could not have been more appropriate. A month after the project was launched, the Hengja Tonga-Hung Hapai volcano in the southwestern Pacific Ocean erupted, causing sonic booms to be heard thousands of miles away, spewing ash 100,000 feet into the sky, rupturing an undersea communications cable, and causing in the occurrence of a sound explosion. Tsunami with perceptible effects as far away as the West Coast of the United States.

Task force member Laura Wallace, a research scientist at the University of Texas Institute of Geophysics and GNS Sciences in New Zealand who studies the occurrence of earthquakes in undersea subduction zones, which generates the world’s largest earthquakes and tsunamis, said.

“I think a comprehensive global seafloor watch, in terms of seafloor pressure and seismology, would have given a much more understanding of the situation much more quickly than we had at that event.”

The initiative, funded by the Moore Foundation, includes experts from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Louisiana State University, Caltech, Subsea Data Systems, Los Alamos National Laboratory, GNS Science, the University of Otago (New Zealand), the French Institute for Research and Sustainable Development, University of Vanuatu National, Vanuatu Meteorological and Geographical Department, Pacific Society (SPC), and International Tsunami Information Centre.

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