skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Ground motion response to an ML 4.3 earthquake using co-located distributed acoustic sensing and seismometer arrays

Journal Article · · Geophysical Journal International
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggy102· OSTI ID:1514806
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
  2. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Wuhan (China)
  3. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  4. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

The PoroTomo research team deployed two arrays of seismic sensors in a natural laboratory at Brady Hot Springs, Nevada in March 2016. The 1500 m (length) by 500 m (width) by 400 m (depth) volume of the laboratory overlies a geothermal reservoir. The surface Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) array consisted of 8700 m of fiber-optic cable in a shallow trench, including 340 m in a well. The conventional seismometer array consisted of 238 three- component geophones. The DAS cable was laid out in three parallel zig-zag lines with line segments approximately 100 meters in length and geophones were spaced at approximately 60- meter intervals. Both DAS and conventional geophones recorded continuously over 15 days during which a moderate-sized earthquake with a local magnitude of 4.3 was recorded on March 21, 2016. Its epicenter was approximately 150-km south-southeast of the laboratory. Several DAS line segments with co-located geophone stations were used to compare signal-to-noise (SNR) ratios in both time and frequency domains and to test relationships between DAS and geophone data. The ratios were typically within a factor of five of each other with DAS SNR often greater for P-wave but smaller for S-wave relative to geophone SNR. The SNRs measured for an earthquake can be better than for active sources, because the earthquake signal contains more low frequency energy and the noise level is also lower at those lower frequencies. Amplitudes of the sum of several DAS strain-rate waveforms matched the finite difference of two geophone waveforms reasonably well, as did the amplitudes of DAS strain waveforms with particle-velocity waveforms recorded by geophones. Similar agreement was found between DAS and geophone observations and synthetic strain seismograms. In conclusion, the combination of good SNR in the seismic frequency band, high-spatial density, large N, and highly accurate time control among individual sensors suggests that DAS arrays have potential to assume a role in earthquake seismology.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Geothermal Technologies Office; Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States); Univ. of Oregon, Eugene, OR (United States); Univ. of Texas, El Paso, TX (United States); Silixa Ltd., Hertfordshire (United Kingdom); Ormat Technologies Inc., Reno, NV (United States); Chinese Academy of Sciences
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344; EE0006760; AC52-07NA27344R
OSTI ID:
1514806
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1429250
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-745280; 900592
Journal Information:
Geophysical Journal International, Vol. 213, Issue 3; ISSN 0956-540X
Publisher:
Oxford University PressCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 71 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (17)

Distributed acoustic sensing for reservoir monitoring with vertical seismic profiling: Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) for reservoir monitoring with VSP journal May 2014
Field testing of modular borehole monitoring with simultaneous distributed acoustic sensing and geophone vertical seismic profiles at Citronelle, Alabama: Field testing of MBM journal November 2015
Dual wavefields from distributed acoustic sensing measurements journal November 2016
Subsurface Imaging Using Buried DAS and Geophone Arrays - Preliminary Results from CO2CRC Otway Project conference May 2016
Properties of Noise Cross‐Correlation Functions Obtained from a Distributed Acoustic Sensing Array at Garner Valley, California journal January 2017
Simultaneous Multiwell VSP in the North Sea Using Distributed Acoustic Sensing conference January 2013
Quantitative structural–geological exploration of fault-controlled geothermal systems—A case study from the Basin-and-Range Province, Nevada (USA) journal March 2015
The CO2CRC Otway Project deployment of a Distributed Acoustic Sensing Network Coupled with Permanent Rotary Sources conference May 2016
Field testing of fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) for subsurface seismic monitoring journal June 2013
Time-series analysis of surface deformation at Brady Hot Springs geothermal field (Nevada) using interferometric synthetic aperture radar journal May 2016
The use of instantaneous polarization attributes for seismic signal detection and image enhancement journal November 2003
An Experimental Investigation of Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) on Lake Ice journal June 2017
Distributed Acoustic Sensing - A New Way of Listening to Your Well/Reservoir conference April 2013
Fiber-Optic Network Observations of Earthquake Wavefields: FIBER-OPTIC EARTHQUAKE OBSERVATIONS journal December 2017
Determination of local phase velocity by intercomparison of seismograms from strain and pendulum instruments journal February 1964
Long-period regional wave moment tensor inversion for earthquakes in the western United States journal June 1995
The use of fast Fourier transform for the estimation of power spectra: A method based on time averaging over short, modified periodograms journal June 1967

Cited By (3)

Seismic Velocity Estimation Using Passive Downhole Distributed Acoustic Sensing Records: Examples From the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth journal July 2019
Pushing the limit of earthquake detection with distributed acoustic sensing and template matching: a case study at the Brady geothermal field journal September 2018
Distributed sensing of microseisms and teleseisms with submarine dark fibers journal December 2019

Figures / Tables (22)

Figure 1(p. 31)figure Figure 1
Figure 2(p. 32)figure Figure 2
Figure 3(p. 33)figure Figure 3
Figure-4(p. 34)figure Figure-4
Figure 5(p. 35)figure Figure 5
Figure 6(p. 36)figure Figure 6
Figure 7(p. 37)figure Figure 7
Figure 8(p. 38)figure Figure 8
Figure 9(p. 39)figure Figure 9
Figure 10(p. 40)figure Figure 10
Figure 11(p. 41)figure Figure 11
Figure 12(p. 42)figure Figure 12
Figure 13(p. 43)figure Figure 13
Figure 14(p. 44)figure Figure 14
Figure 15(p. 45)figure Figure 15
Figure 16(p. 46)figure Figure 16
Figure 17(p. 47)figure Figure 17
Figure 18(p. 48)figure Figure 18
Figure 19(p. 49)figure Figure 19
Figure 20(p. 50)figure Figure 20
Figure 21(p. 51)figure Figure 21
Figure 22(p. 52)figure Figure 22

Similar Records

Related Subjects

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
Instrumentation
Seismic array
Seismic spectra
Seismograms
P waves
S waves
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION
Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS)
ground motion
strain
particle velocity
60 signal-to-noise ratio
earthquake seismology