New wiggles from old cables: Acquisition, cable, and data aspects

ABSTRACT Seismic imaging is essential for detailed characterization and understanding of the subsurface. Traditionally, marine seismic data have been acquired either using towed streamers or ocean-bottom receivers. Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a novel and fast-emerging technology that makes it possible to use fiber-optic cables for acoustic measurements. The technology turns the fiber-optic cable into a densely sampled receiver array. A controlled source experiment comparing DAS and conventional towed streamer data for seismic imaging purposes is described. An existing 130 km telecommunication fiber-optic cable was interrogated to acquire DAS data to analyze the signal at long distances and for subsurface imaging. A seismic source vessel was used to create seismic data along the full cable length, while at the same time acquiring conventional towed streamer data for comparison. In addition, the telecommunication fiber-optic cable was used to acquire passive DAS data. The results show that seismic signals in the telecommunication fiber-optic cable are detectable at distances above 100 km from the source point. Furthermore, comparisons of the DAS data and towed streamer data show that the DAS technology allows for the acquisition of large offset seismic data that are comparable with conventional seismic data. Analysis of the passive DAS data shows that the infragravity waves correlate with the observed weather conditions during the acquisition.