Alaska Communications is collaborating with the University of Michigan’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences to allow earthquake monitoring data to be collected from the ocean floor via the company’s subsea fiber optic cable. University of Michigan Assistant Professor ?ack Spica and a graduate student traveled to Alaska Communications’ landing station in Florence, Oregon last week to attach a DAS interrogator (distributed acoustic sensing) to the company’s fiber. The instrument uses a beam of light inside the fiber to analyze seismic activity and report data back to the research team. Spica has used subsea fiber optic cables for monitoring in Japan and Spain and has also used fiber within urban areas for this type of research.