Internet Cables Could Also Measure Quakes
網絡電纜也可以用來測量地震
The fiberoptic cables that connect the global internet could potentially be used as seismic sensors. Christopher Intagliata reports.
連接全球的互聯網網絡的光纖電纜可以用來作爲地震傳感器，
In addition to giant crustaceans and creepy anglerfish, the deep oceans hide a vital piece of technology: the cables connecting almost every continent and archipelago to the internet. But it seems those undersea cables can be used for more than just sending cat memes around the world.
海底除了巨型甲殼動物和恐怖的魚之外，還隱藏着一種至關重要的技術：電纜連接着幾乎所有的大陸與羣島的網絡。但是海底電纜似乎並不只是可以在世界範圍內發送貓咪表情，還可以用來做更多的事情。
"We can do a good job picking up earthquakes in offshore cables."
我們可以做好海上電纜在地震時候的測量工作。
Jonathan Ajo-Franklin is an applied geophysicist at Rice University and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. He says that fiberoptic cables are like threads of glass—and there are impurities built in. So when you shoot lasers through the fibers, those impurities backscatter some of the light right back to the laser source.
喬納森 阿喬-富蘭克林 是一個在萊斯大學和勞倫斯伯克利國家實驗室的地球物理學家，他說光纖電纜和玻璃絲一樣，裏面也包含了雜質。所以當你發射的激光通過纖維的時候，那些雜質直接將光線散射回到了激光源。
"We make measurements of the change in the backscattered light over time, which gives you information on the stretch of the cable at each location."
我們測量了光線散射隨着時間的變化，這樣就可以獲得電纜在每個地方的延伸情況信息。
His team took advantage of a brief maintenance period when a particular cable, off the coast of Monterey, California, was not being used for communication. The researchers studied the slight deformations in the cable and were able to sense a small earthquake; pinpoint unmapped faults in the seafloor; and observe movements in the water column… all of which might be of interest to oceanographers.
他的小組利用短暫的維護時間來維護特殊的電纜，發現在加利福尼亞州的蒙特雷海岸的電纜沒有用來通信。研究員利用電纜輕微形變並能夠感知到小型地震，檢查在海底光纜未連接的斷層情況，並且觀察電纜在水欄中的移動，所有這些都是海洋科學家所感興趣的。
Their work is in the journal Science. [Nathaniel J. Lindsey, T. Craig Dawe, Jonathan B. Ajo-Franklin, Illuminating seafloor faults and ocean dynamics with dark fiber distributed acoustic sensing]
這篇文章發佈與科學雜誌中。【Nathaniel J. Lindsey, T. Craig Dawe, Jonathan B. Ajo-Franklin,暗光纖分佈式聲學傳感技術爲海底斷層和海洋動力學照明】
Ajo-Franklin points out that seismometers are pretty sparse in the world's oceans. "It's a big blank spot." So these cables could really come in handy. And, unlike for this study, you wouldn't even have to turn off the internet to do it.
阿喬-富蘭克林指出地震儀在海洋中很少，他是一個很大的空白，所以這些電纜真的可以派上用場，並且，與這次的研究不同，你甚至不用關掉網絡也可以操作。
"We're looking at ways of potentially using just a small section of the spectrum so you can communicate at the same time you can do sensing on these kinds of cables."
我們正在研究只使用一部分光譜達到目的的方法，以便你可以在進行電纜感測的時候不影響通訊。
Which might bring more of the Earth's deep rumblings… online.
這樣可以讓我們感知到地球上更多的地震情況。
—Christopher Intagliata