Researchers propose using undersea internet cables to detect tsunamis
By Donald Melanson 
posted January 27th 2010 11:02AM
posted January 27th 2010 11:02AM
We've heard of a few inventive ideas for detecting tsunamis, and it looks like a group of researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (or NOAA) have now come up with another: put all those undersea internet cables to a second use. While they haven't moved beyond computer models just yet, the group has apparently found that voltmeters attached to the end of an undersea cable are able to detect the small electric field stirred up by tsunamis, which measure around 500 millivolts. As New Scientist reports, however, the idea does have some considerable limitations, including that it wouldn't be able to pinpoint the exact location or direction of a tsunami, and that any such system would first need to filter out noise caused by other natural events and even the cable itself. Other researchers also caution that it's just as important to develop a system to quickly pass on a warning to potentially affected areas once a tsunami has been detected.
Wow I thought I was not going to see a non Tablet Post today! WTG!
This seems complicated. Couldn't they just install some filtering software on either end and look for Tweets about a tsunami?
@Bosco
"TSUNAMI! running"
"Tripped, searching forr shoes. I hope I tweet fast enough"
"Guy next to me typing about this on his blog while runnin. Glad I got tweet.
"tsunami 10m behinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn"
needz moar tablet... AMIRITE!?!?11! D:
So it can detect a tsunami, but not where it is, what direction its heading, or when it will strike.
I can see it now:
"Attention coastline cities of.......erm......everyone! There is a tsunami.......somewhere. Soooooooo, keep an eye out"
I guess its better than nothing.
This isn't really anything new. Scientists in Tokyo took over the old TPC-1 cable that connected Japan to Guam in 1964 and have been using it for apparently more than a decade to carry out seismic research.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/19362364/Submarine-cable-OBS-using-a-retired-submarine-telecommunication-cable
Sounds overly complicated and cheaper and simpler to simply drop a normal detector on the bottom of the sea, or force the navy to disclose tsunami events, since they have suitable detector grids to detect submarines for many decades that probably also clearly show such things as a sidebenefit.
"other researchers" are right. Tsunami's are inevitably tied to seismic events we can usually detect and pinpoint fairly quickly anyway, whether they be quake, landslide, volcano or alien induced. The problem is distributing the warning and having sufficient safety measures in place. This seems merely a "hey, isn't this cool" idea.
cool