About us

The WAVE initiative investigates and designs a seismic and geo-acoustic measurement network in and around and around the Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld. WAVE is a unique and innovative infrastructure for geophysics, physics and especially for large-scale research facilities. A key element of WAVE is the widespread use of modern seismic sensors, in particular distributed acoustic sensing (DAS). This technology uses fiber optic cables as sensitive seismic sensors. It enables ground motion data to be recorded at an unprecedented spatial density over long distances, revolutionizing geophysics.

The WAVE concept has been tested under realistic conditions to demonstrate the feasibility and possibilities of such a network on site. To this end, the initiative carried out a proof-of-concept experiment on the DESY/UHH campus in Bahrenfeld in May 2021, using, among other things, a 12.6 km long, existing and continuous strand of currently unused telecommunications fiber as a series of seismic sensors. The wave field was recorded at high resolution, with 1 m intervals along the entire length of the fiber.

Since then, we have expanded the network to currently 19 km of fiber, organized several Outreach events and Livestreams of the data, including during a Taylor Swift concert. We hold regular Workshops and other events, and of course we also use the data for a range of interdisciplinary Scientific analysis!

More information about the network, technology and infrastructure can be found here.