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Dark fiber publication one of 2019’s top 100 Scientific Reports earth science papers1 min read

by Christina Procopiou on March 23, 2020

Energy Geosciences Division

A research team led by Jonathan Ajo-Franklin of Berkeley Lab’s Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA) is turning parts of a 13,000-mile-long “dark fiber” testbed owned by DOE’s ESnet into a highly sensitive seismic activity sensor. L-R: Inder Monga (ESnet), Verónica Rodríguez Tribaldos (EESA), Jonathan Ajo-Franklin, and Nate Lindsey (EESA). (Credit: Paul Mueller/Berkeley Lab)

 

A research team led by EESA faculty scientist Jonathan Ajo-Franklin published a paper in Nature Scientific Reports that has been named one of the top 100 downloaded Earth science papers for the journal in 2019. Since its publication in February 2019, the paper, Distributed Acoustic Sensing Using Dark Fiber for Near-Surface Characterization and Broadband Seismic Event Detection, received 4,932 article downloads. Scientific Reports published more than 769 Earth science papers in 2019, making this level of interest in the Ajo-Franklin’s team’s paper an extraordinary achievement.

Their study detailed their work turning parts of a 13,000-mile-long testbed of “dark fiber,” unused fiber-optic cable, owned by the DOE Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), into a highly sensitive seismic activity sensor that could potentially augment the performance of earthquake early warning systems currently being developed in the western United States. The researchers ran their experiments on a 20-mile segment of the 13,000-mile-long ESnet Dark Fiber Testbed that extends from West Sacramento to Woodland, California.

Read more about the work here.

News & Events

EESA Celebrates International Day of Women & Girls in Science2 min read

February 24, 2021

On 11 February, the United Nations, Berkeley Lab, and other organizations worldwide marked the 6th annual International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The day focuses on the reality that science and gender equality are both vital for the achievement of international development goals, such as climate change mitigation. Susan Hubbard, Associate Laboratory Director…

EESA Scientists Contribute to DOE GTO Research on Critical Minerals2 min read

  Scientists in the Energy Geosciences Division are contributing to research sponsored by the DOE Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) investigating the potential extraction of lithium, rare earth elements, and other critical minerals that are dissolved constituents of hot geothermal brines that are used to produce  electricity. Far more information is currently needed, for instance, about…

CSA News Calls Out Recent NGEE-Tropics Research2 min read

February 22, 2021

  CSA News, the magazine of three related societies: the Agronomy Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, published an article in its January 2021 issue describing research led by research scientist Robinson Negrón Juárez, on behalf of the NGEE-Tropics project. The article highlights a paper published recently…

Two EESA Women Chosen for the 2020 Women @ The Lab Awards2 min read

February 9, 2021

Two EESA women, Sandy Chin and Laura Nielsen Lammers, were chosen for the 2020 Women @ The Lab awards. They join an esteemed cohort of 15 women across Berkeley Lab who have made and continue to make significant contributions in the areas of leadership, science, operations, mentorship, and outreach.  Sandy Chin, who recently assumed the…

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