Scientists from the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and New Zealand’s Measurement Standards Laboratory are set to carry out earthquake sensing tests in the Pacific Ocean using existing undersea optical fibre cables.

It is incredible to think that more than 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, and much of this water in our seas and oceans remains largely unmonitored.

Installing and maintaining permanent seabed sensors to monitor our oceans is challenging and expensive.

However, UK metrology company NPL has created a technique that uses existing fibre optic cables to gather continuous, real-time environmental data from the seabed.

By performing ultra-sensitive optical measurements, this technique does not require any new hardware or infrastructure – instead it ‘converts’ the fibre optic cable itself into an environmental sensor.

In a new partnership with Measurement Standards Laboratory in New Zealand, the two companies will later this year test this technique on a section...