Article on Ultra-Dense Observation of Earthquakes without the Use of Seismometers: The Mechanism of Earthquakes in Southern Kyoto Prefecture Captured by Fiber-Optic Sensing Technology

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A research group consisting of doctoral student Yuki Funabiki at the Graduate School of Science, and Prof. Masatoshi Miyazawa at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University, captured an earthquake that occurred in Southern Kyoto Prefecture using data from a novel fiber-optic sensing technique called distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), demonstrating the effectiveness of next-generation earthquake observation.

“Understanding the focal mechanism of an earthquake, which indicates fault movement and geometry, is essential to understanding the earthquake process. We propose a method for estimating focal mechanisms using data from a novel fiber-optic sensing technique called distributed acoustic sensing (DAS).”

For further details, refer to the full  article – Estimating Focal Mechanism of Small Earthquakes Using S/P Amplitude Ratios of Distributed Acoustic Sensing Records published online in the International academic Journal Geophysical Research Letters on 3 May 2025.