Submarine integrated sensing and communication cable networks enable high-precision earthquake location estimation through linear wavefront theory

The exponential growth of information has accelerated the development of telecommunications infrastructure, particularly submarine communication cables. These cables not only handle massive international data transmission but also hold potential as a network for submarine earthquake monitoring. The integration of sensing technology and communications in submarine optical cable networks enables this dual functionality. In this work, we propose a novel, to our knowledge, method for submarine earthquake location estimation utilizing linear earthquake wavefronts detected through integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) submarine cables. By converting cables into dense earthquake arrays and analyzing wavefront characteristics, our approach achieves a minimum comprehensive localization error of (±0.02435 ∘ N, ±0.05025 ∘ E) compared to the official references, translating to a comprehensive error of ±6.19km. The incorporation of submarine earthquake location estimation into communication networks based on submarine optical cables offers a cost-effective solution to the long-standing issue of sparse ocean earthquake networks while providing essential earthquake data for submarine exploration and imaging.