Understanding surface-wave modal content for high-resolution imaging of submarine sediments with Distributed Acoustic Sensing

Source abstract

Ocean Bottom Distributed Acoustic Sensing (OBDAS) is emerging as a new measurement method providing dense, high-fidelity, and broadband seismic observations from fibre-optic cables deployed offshore. In this study, we focus on 33 km of a telecommunication cable located offshore the Sanriku region, Japan, and apply seismic interferometry to obtain a high-resolution 2-D shear-wave velocity (VS) model below the cable. We first show that the processing steps applied to two weeks of continuous data prior to computing Cross-Correlation Functions (CCFs) impact the modal content of surface waves. Data pre-processed with 1-bit normalisation allow us to retrieve dispersion images with high Scholte-wave energy between 0.5 and 5 Hz, whereas spatial aliasing dominates dispersion images above 3 Hz for non-1-bit CCFs. Moreover, the number of receiver channels considered to compute dispersion images also greatly affects the resolution of extracted surface-wave modes. In some regions of the array, we observe up to 30 higher modes. To better understand the remarkably rich modal nature of OBDAS data, we simulate Scholte-wave dispersion curves from constant VS gradient media. For soft marine sediments, simulations confirm that a large number of modes can be generated. Based on pre-processing and theoretical considerations, we extract surface-wave dispersion curves from 1-bit CCFs spanning over 400 channels (i.e., ~2 km) along the array and invert them to image the subsurface. The 2-D velocity profile generally exhibits slow shear-wave velocities near the ocean floor that gradually increase with depth. Lateral variations are also observed. Flat bathymetry regions, where sediments tend to accumulate, reveal a larger number of Scholte-wave modes and lower shallow velocity layers than regions with steeper bathymetry. We also compare and discuss the velocity model with that from a previous study and finally discuss the combined effect of bathymetry and shallow VS layers on earthquake wavefields. Our results provide new constraints on the shallow submarine structure in the area and further demonstrate the potential of OBDAS for high-resolution offshore geophysical prospecting.