Scientific Reuse of Submarine Telecommunications Cables: Implementation on a Portion of Pacific Cable TPC-1

将进行一个国际合作项目，调查国际电话公司正在放弃或退役的海底电信电缆的潜在多学科科学用途。数字光纤技术已经成熟，新型光纤海底通信电缆正在取代老式的模拟同轴电缆。旧电缆仍然有几十年的使用寿命，它们代表了科学再利用的机会，作为在深海进行实时、长期海洋学和地球物理观测的工具。对全球尺度地球物理过程的研究将日益需要改进世界范围内对海洋和地下地球的长期监测。获得实时数据将加强许多这类研究。在很长一段时间内，使用从船上部署的传统仪器来实现这些广泛空间覆盖的目标将是昂贵的。通过卫星和其他手段进行的有效、实时的数据遥测也有局限性。一个可能的替代方案是使用计划在未来十年内退役的部分跨洋电信电缆。它们可以装有能够监测某些地球物理特性的传感器。该电缆可以提供可靠的电源来源，实时获取高带宽数据的手段，并提供远程控制仪器的方法。该项目特别涉及TCP-1，这是at&t / kdd拥有的夏威夷-关岛-日本电缆，其中一部分已移交给IRIS和东京大学，供国际学术研究界使用。日本正在计划用地震仪和磁力计对关岛-日本部分进行初步测量。在开始进行重大工程工作和安装这些仪器之前，必须先在美国拥有的关岛接收站完成工作。将建造一座小建筑物，用于容纳为海底中继器供电和控制的电子设备，电缆将在该建筑物内重新端接。一系列小型试点研究也将探讨：1)使用学术研究船而不是商业电缆船来处理深海电缆的可行性，2)海底声学调制解调器的概念设计，通过该调制解调器可以将自主科学仪器连接到海底电缆，以及3)新的低成本方法将数据耦合到海底电缆中。美国私营企业正在进行合作，美国电话电报公司正在将TCP-1电缆的所有权转让给一个学术研究机构组成的财团，正在其关岛站点提供空间和电力，并在一年的过渡期内保持电缆的供电。

An international, collaborative project will be undertaken to investigate the potential multidisciplinary scientific use of undersea telecommunications cables that are being abandoned or retired by international telephone companies. Digital fiber optic technology has matured to the point where new fiber optic submarine telecommunications cables are replacing older analog coaxial types. The older cables still have decades of useful life and they represent an opportunity for scientific re-use as a tool for real-time, long-term oceanographic and geophysical observations on the deep seafloor. The study of global scale geophysical processes will increasingly require improved world-wide long-term monitoring of the oceans and underlying Earth. Having access to data in real-time will enhance many of these studies. Achieving these goals of broad spatial coverage, over long time periods using conventional instrumentation deployed from ships will be costly. Effective, real-time data telemetry via satellites and other means also has limitations. One possible alternative would be to use portions of ocean-spanning telecommunications cables scheduled to be retired in the next decade. They could be instrumented with sensors capable of monitoring certain geophysical properties. The cable could provide a source of reliable power, a means to acquire high bandwidth data in real time and provide a way to control remote instrumentation. The project deals specifically with TCP-1, an AT&T/KDD-owned Hawaii-Guam-Japan cable -- a portion of which has been turned over to IRIS and the University of Tokyo for use by the international academic research community. Plans are underway in Japan to initially instrument the Guam-Japan portion with seismometers and magnetometers. Work to be accomplished at the U.S.-owned Guam termination site is necessary before significant engineering efforts and installation of these instruments can be started. A small building for housing the electronics that power and control the seafloor repeaters will be constructed and the cable will be re-terminated within this building. A series of small pilot studies will also explore: 1) the feasibility of using academic research vessels rather than commercial cable ships to handle deep sea cables, 2) conceptual designs for a seafloor acoustic modem through which autonomous scientific instruments can be connected to a submarine cable, and 3) new, low-cost methods to couple data into a seafloor cable in situ. U.S. private industry is collaborating in that AT&T is transferring ownership of the TCP-1 cable to a consortium of academic research institutions, is making space and electrical power available at its Guam site, and is keeping the cable powered up during a one-year transition period.