Comparative Study of Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) and Geophone Response in Geothermal and Groundwater Systems

Summary This study evaluated Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) for subsurface imaging by comparing it with geophones. In a simplified Earth model, DAS provided superior spatial resolution of a shallow aquiferous unit due to its dense sampling but exhibited lower vertical resolution for deeper layers due to seismic energy attenuation. In a complex faulted model, geophones more clearly delineated fault edges, while DAS showed increased migration artifacts due to fiber directivity. These findings highlighted DAS’s strengths in high-resolution shallow imaging but also its limitations in vertical resolution and fault boundary detection compared to geophones.