A study published in the world’s leading scientific journal Nature Scientific Reports revealed that existing fiber optic cables used to provide internet access under the sea can detect earthquakes coming from the sea thirty minutes earlier than current methods. It has been demonstrated that optical communication fibers, including fibers from commercial communication companies, can provide earthquake early warning systems.

From HU’s Earth Sciences Institute, Dr. Itzhak Lior said, “Earthquakes that occur below the seabed or in non-sensing areas can be detected with a delay with current technologies; This prevents preparing for earthquakes. Recently, earthquakes can be tracked with fiber optic cables, including those used worldwide for internet communication. In this study, we show that optical fibers can be used instead of traditional sensors to provide early warning, especially in marine earthquakes.” says.

Existing solutions such as intensifying land-based seismic networks and installing wired ocean-based sensor networks are being implemented in Japan and Canada. These solutions cannot be applied worldwide due to their high cost. However, there is an alternative; converting existing fiber optic cables into dense seismic networks using new acoustic sensing technology. Using existing fiber infrastructure will simplify and speed up the installation and operation of earthquake warning systems and shorten warning times.

Numerous earthquakes occur every year all over the world. Fortunately, most of them are weak and innocuous, but the strong ones (such as the 1999 Gölcük earthquake, 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake) can cause mass catastrophes and many casualties. While current earthquake monitoring technology can provide early warning for land-based earthquakes, sea-based earthquakes are usually detected ten seconds after they start and result in death.