The capability of turning fiber cables into geophysical sensors is revolutionizing many areas of Earth and Environmental monitoring and imaging. Applications span from earthquake seismology to volcanology, from sustainable energy production to geologic carbon sequestration, from ocean-waves analysis to ice-sheet monitoring. In this class, we will introduce the physical phenomena that enable turning fiber cables into sensors and the basics of the equipment that exploits these physical phenomena for producing useful data. We will also discuss the signal processing and geophysical inversion techniques to process the raw data for producing the information used by scientists. In the second part of the class, we will explore several scientific and engineering applications. The course will have computational labs that require a working knowledge of Python and signal processing at the level of EE 168 or equivalent courses.
3 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
The capability of turning fiber cables into geophysical sensors is revolutionizing many areas of Earth and Environmental monitoring and imaging. Applications span from earthquake seismology to volcanology, from sustainable energy production to geologic carbon sequestration, from ocean-waves analysis to ice-sheet monitoring. In this class, we will introduce the physical phenomena that enable turning fiber cables into sensors and the basics of the equipment that exploits these physical phenomena for producing useful data. We will also discuss the signal processing and geophysical inversion techniques to process the raw data for producing the information used by scientists. In the second part of the class, we will explore several scientific and engineering applications. The course will have computational labs that require a working knowledge of Python and signal processing at the level of EE 168 or equivalent courses.
Offered in Spring 2026 at Stanford University.