Some 70% of Earth9s surface is covered by water, and yet nearly all earthquake detectors are on land. Aside from some expensive battery-powered sensors dropped to the sea floor and later retrieved, and a few arrays of near-shore detectors connected to land, seismologists have no way of monitoring the quakes that ripple through the sea floor and sometimes create tsunamis. Now, a technique described online in Science this week promises to take advantage of more than 1 million kilometers of fiber optic cables that crisscross the ocean floors and carry the world9s internet and telecom traffic. By looking for tiny changes in an optical signal running along the cable, scientists can detect and potentially locate earthquakes. The technique requires little more than lasers at each end of the cable and access to a small portion of the cable9s bandwidth. Crucially, it requires no modification to the cable itself and does not interfere with its everyday use.

中文翻译：

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海底光缆可以监听地震

地球表面大约 70% 被水覆盖，但几乎所有的地震探测器都在陆地上。除了一些昂贵的电池供电的传感器掉到海底然后被回收，以及一些连接到陆地的近岸探测器阵列之外，地震学家无法监测在海底产生涟漪并有时会引发海啸的地震。现在，本周《科学》在线描述的一项技术有望利用超过 100 万公里的光纤电缆，这些光纤电缆在海底纵横交错，承载着全世界的互联网和电信流量。通过寻找沿电缆传输的光信号的微小变化，科学家们可以检测并潜在地定位地震。该技术只需要在电缆的每一端安装激光器并访问电缆带宽的一小部分。