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Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) of Strain at Earth Tide Frequencies: Laboratory Tests

Metadata Updated: July 8, 2025

The solid Earth strains in response to the gravitational pull from the Moon, Sun, and other planetary bodies. Measuring the flexure of geologic material in response to these Earth tides provides information about the geomechanical properties of rock and sediment. Such measurements are particularly useful for understanding dilation of faults and fractures in competent rock. A new approach to measuring earth tides using fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is presented here. DAS was originally designed to record acoustic vibration through the measurement of dynamic strain on a fiber optic cable. Here, laboratory experiments demonstrate that oscillating strain can be measured with DAS in the microHertz frequency range, corresponding to half-day (M2) lunar tidal cycles. Although the magnitude of strain measured in the laboratory is larger than what would be expected due to earth tides, a clear signal at half-day period was extracted from the data. With the increased signal-to-noise expected from quiet field applications and improvements to DAS using engineered fiber, earth tides could potentially be measured in deep boreholes with DAS. Because of the distributed nature of the sensor (0.25 m measurement interval over kilometers), fractures could be simultaneously located and evaluated. Such measurements would provide valuable information regarding the placement and stiffness of open fractures in bedrock. Characterization of bedrock fractures is an important goal for multiple subsurface operations such as petroleum extraction, geothermal energy recovery, and geologic carbon sequestration.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: Creative Commons Attribution

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Dates

Metadata Created Date July 8, 2025
Metadata Updated Date July 8, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from OpenEI data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date July 8, 2025
Metadata Updated Date July 8, 2025
Publisher California State University
Maintainer
Doi 10.15121/1512085
Identifier https://data.openei.org/submissions/8444
Data First Published 2018-01-24T07:00:00Z
Data Last Modified 2025-07-07T16:48:24Z
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 019:20
Metadata Context https://openei.org/data.json
Metadata Catalog ID https://openei.org/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Data Quality True
Harvest Object Id 78625007-d372-4a9b-a29b-b29882e7d446
Harvest Source Id 7cbf9085-0290-4e9f-bec1-91653baeddfd
Harvest Source Title OpenEI data.json
Homepage URL https://gdr.openei.org/submissions/1129
License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Program Code 019:006
Projectlead William Vandermeer
Projectnumber EE0006763
Projecttitle Phase I Project: Fiber Optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing for Periodic Hydraulic Tests
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 7301fcb1e4a13cace4d87b24f6d3ddb33d368c164be5809851f7c6d0b0cbcea8
Source Schema Version 1.1
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