FiberSense uses fibre to monitor NZ earthquake

Infrastructure monitoring company FiberSense has released impact data collected from the recent 5.8 magnitude earthquake near Wellington through its DigitalSeismic monitoring service.

The data collected during the 22 September Cook Strait earthquake demonstrates the ability of the service to measure earthquake impacts on a building-by-building level, the company said.

The DigitalSeismic service captured the peak ground acceleration with around 1000 times greater fidelity compared to what was captured by the conventional seismic service, according to FiberSense founder and CEO Mark Englund.

“Immediately after the earthquake last week, we first confirmed that the main data points from the official readings — like magnitude and wave movement across ground — closely matched with our readings,” he said.

“This established that our fibre optic-based quake detection is as reliable as current methods that depend on monitoring stations scattered across New Zealand.”

The DigitalSeismic service makes measurements of how much the ground shook at positions every few metres along an optical fibre covered by the FiberSense service. This compares to traditional seismometers, which can be separated by many kilometres.

FiberSense is now working with seismologists at Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Auckland to study the earthquake recordings. The research partnership is being executed using grant funding from New Zealand’s Earthquake Commission.

Image credit: iStock.com/mustafabilgesatkin