U. S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Powell Center is offering funding opportunity to a CESU Partner for research on “Fiber Optic Seismology for Earthquake Hazards Research, Monitoring and Early Warning.” The project will improve current efforts in earthquake science by incorporating advancements

credit: SpaceX on unsplash

How's Your Community Doing?
Check Out it's
Community Vital Signs

in fiber-optic seismology.

The goal of this proposal is to advance the USGS, along with academic, industry, and agency partners, towards effective utilization of fiber-optic sensing techniques to understand earthquake hazards and to improve monitoring and real-time warning systems.

The project will have two phases:
Phase 1 will develop a strategic plan that identifies which aspects of the earthquake program have the highest likelihood of benefitting from fiber-optic technology and what types of concentrated efforts might improve hazard research and products.

Investigators will identify technical requirements that instrumentation and/or data must meet to be useful.

A second key goal of this phase will be to develop a database of dark fiber that is potentially accessible for planned scientific experiments and/or rapid hazard response such as aftershock monitoring.

Phase 2 will demonstrate the improvements in forecasting capabilities for ongoing programs including Earthquake Early Warning, offshore fault characterization, urban geotechnical studies, monitoring induced seismicity, and earthquake source physics.