Abstract
Over the past decades, the development of fibre optic cables, which pass light waves carrying data guided by total internal reflection, has led to advances in high-speed and long-distance communication, large data transmission, optical imaging, and sensing applications. Thus far, fibre optic sensors (FOSs) have primarily been employed in engineering, biomedicine, and basic sciences, with few reports of their usage in geophysics as point and distributed sensors. This work aimed at reviewing the studies on the use of FOSs in geophysical applications with their fundamental principles and technological improvements. FOSs based on Rayleigh, Brillouin, and Raman scatterings and fibre Bragg grating sensors are reviewed based on their sensing performance comprising sensing range, spatial resolution, and measurement parameters. The recent progress in applying distributed FOSs to detect acoustic, temperature, pressure, and strain changes, as either single or multiple parameters simultaneously on surface and borehole survey environments with their cable deployment techniques, has been systematically reviewed. Despite the development of fibre optic sensor technology and corresponding experimental reports of applications in geophysics, there have not been attempts to summarise and synthesise fibre optic methods for prospecting as a comprehensive and modern branch of geophysics. Therefore, this paper outlines the fibre optic prospecting methods, with an emphasis on their advantages, as a guide for the geophysical community. The potential of the new outlined fibre optic prospecting methods to revolutionise conventional geophysical approaches is discussed. Finally, the future challenges and limitations of the new prospecting methods for geophysical applications are elucidated.
Highlights
Modern geophysical techniques rely on large amounts of data and high sensitivity sensors to identify the measurand from the noise
When a fibre is used as a sensor, a light beam is converted into an electrical signal, and the sensor measures the physical parameters of the light and translates the information into an output read by an instrument
We have reviewed some of the widespread activity in optical fibre light scattering for sensing
Summary
Modern geophysical techniques rely on large amounts of data and high sensitivity sensors to identify the measurand from the noise. Fibre optic technology has been applied in the oil and gas industry over the last 20 years, initially focusing on downhole, single-point temperature and pressure sensing in 1993 (Silkina 2014) Later, it was used as distributed temperature and acoustic sensors resulting from developments in the telecom industry (Lu et al 2019a). The fibre optics cable capacity with low signal attenuation, low signal absorption, high bandwidth, and high bit transmission renders these sensors ideal for geophysical applications. The paper aims to present the progress and practices of distributed fibre sensing technology and multi-parameter simultaneous measurement techniques based on back-scattering of light and FBG while applied to near-surface and borehole geophysical surveys. The paper aims to outline the limitations of fibre optics sensing technology in geophysics and suggest future focus areas to improve the new techniques
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