Fiber optic cables reveal ‘icequakes’ in endangered glaciers

Researchers at ETH Zurich laid fiber optic cable in a grid across an alpine glacier and used distributed acoustic sensing to detect ‘icequakes,’ fractures caused by meltwater seeping deep into the ice and forcing it apart, a process called hydrofracturing. In one week of fieldwork the team logged more than a thousand icequakes, treating the cable as the equivalent of thousands of seismometers at a fraction of the cost.

Lead author Thomas Hudson says the method could eventually warn of catastrophic glacial collapse of the sort that recently struck Nepal, though he's careful to note the research doesn't yet address how to turn raw seismic signals into an actual warning that reaches people in time.

The same underlying technique was used last year on a cable near a Greenland glacier, revealing a separate self-perpetuating melt cycle as calving ice stirs up warmer water. Applied more broadly, the approach could help track ice stability in Antarctica and Greenland, where warming water already eats at ice shelves from below.

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