2023_programme: Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) on Ice

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  • Session: 02. Advances in acoustic measurement systems: Technologies and applications
    Organiser(s): Alessandra Tesei and Purnima Ratilal-Makris
  • Lecture: Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) on Ice
    Paper ID: 2072
    Author(s): Quinn Meghan C. L., Flynn Darren Engel Chandler S., Coclin Constantine G., Baxter Christopher D. P., Potty Gopu R., Picucci Jennifer R.
    Presenter: Potty Gopu R
    Abstract: Fibre optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) systems provide vibrational strain response information comparable to accelerometers, geophones, and seismometers. DAS has seismic monitoring utility on land and underwater for applications including earthquakes, infrastructure monitoring, and near surface geophysical surveys. The high resolution (one to ten meters), high sampling rate (greater than 2kHz) DAS response along kilometres of fibre optic cable create the potential for major advances relative to existing methods in applications such as explosion and rock burst detection, seismic monitoring, and tomographic imaging of the near subsurface. While the fibre optic cable portion of the DAS system is the sensing member, the interrogator component pulses light into the cable fibre and captures changes in the Rayleigh backscatter due to the pulsed light. These changes in Rayleigh backscatter are proportional to the vibrational strain acting on the fibre optic cable portion of the DAS system. Vibrations in the medium the fibre optic cable is embedded-in or coupled-to (e.g. soil or ice) are transferred from the medium as strain acting on the cable jacket. This strain is transferred through the internal geometry of the fibre optic cable to the fibre in which light is pulsed and scattering. To test DAS performance in ice, a portion of fibre optic cable was deployed in ice at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) facility in New Hampshire, USA. The installation of fibre optic cable in ice, DAS response to tap testing, and preliminary DAS results associated with loading the ice will be discussed. Ambient noise with and without a pump in water (under the ice) were recorded overnight. Data will be analysed to understand the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), attenuation of DAS signal in ice and directional sensitivity of the array.
  • Corresponding author: Prof Gopu R Potty
    Affiliation: University of Rhode Island
    Country: United States
    e-mail:

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