World’s First SMART Cable Data Release at EMSO Western Ionian Sea!

After the first wet demo in the world that took place in the Mediterranean, at the EMSO Western Ionian Sea facility (WIS) as part of the Italian project InSEA, the SMART cable of WIS has entered into ordinary operation and is regularly releasing the data acquired.

This groundbreaking achievement represents a significant progress and opens a new perspective in ocean monitoring strategies. As described in the article “EMSO Western Ionian Sea: Advancing Ocean Monitoring with SMART Cable and Multidisciplinary Platforms”, the SMART cable integrates geophysical sensors into an existing telecommunication cable, offering a cost-effective and efficient way to gather valuable data from the deep sea.

Three sets of geophysical sensors are positioned inside three common repeaters of the SMART cable of commercial telecom type, spaced 6 km apart( in the picture above) .

Each sensor set is composed of:

a wide-band triaxial accelerometer,
a broadband triaxial seismometer,
a pressure sensor,
a temperature sensor.

First data are now flowing from the seafloor to land.

Local seismic event (05-02-2024 08:14:56) recorded by the Guralp Certimus seismometers installed in the repeaters

Pressure data acquired by Paroscientific 8CB-4000-I during the period January – March 2024

Temperature data acquired by the SBE 19plus sensors during the period 01 – 18 January 2024.

The WIS SMART cable demo and operation has demonstrated the feasibility of sensor integration in telecommunication repeaters preserving data high quality. This paves the way to a more efficient and widespread use of SMART cables in deep ocean research.

Explore the exciting world of deep-sea data! We’ve provided links to access and download the collected data

Seismometers

Repeater 1 – WIS03
https://doi.org/10.13127/MD/WIS-SMARTCABLE-2023-SISMO1

Repeater 2- WIS04
https://doi.org/10.13127/MD/WIS-SMARTCABLE-2023-SISMO2

Repeater 3 – WIS05

https://doi.org/10.13127/MD/WIS-SMARTCABLE-2023-SISMO3

Pressure Sensors

Repeater 1

https://doi.org/10.13127/MD/WIS-SMARTCABLE-2023-BPR1

Repeater 2

https://doi.org/10.13127/MD/WIS-SMARTCABLE-2023-BPR2

Repeater 3