Novel sensor array helps to understand submarine cable faults off West Africa
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
Seabed telecommunication cables can be damaged or broken by powerful seafloor flows of sediment (called turbidity currents), which may runout for hundreds of kilometres into the deep ocean. These flows have the potential to affect multiple cables near-simultaneously over very large areas, so it is more challenging to reroute traffic or repair the cables. However, cable-breaking turbidity currents that runout into the deep ocean were poorly understood, and thus hard to predict, as there were no detailed measurements from these flows in action. Here we present the first detailed measurements from such cable-breaking flows, using moored-sensors along the Congo Submarine Canyon offshore West Africa. These turbidity currents include the furthest travelled sediment flow (of any type) yet measured in action on Earth. The SAT-3 (South Atlantic 3) and WACs (West Africa Cable System) cables were broken on 14-16th January 2020 by a turbidity current that accelerated from 5 to 8 m/s, as it travelled for > 1,130 km from river estuary to deep-sea, although a branch of the WACs cable located closer to shore survived. The SAT-3 cable was broken again on 9th March 2020 due to a second turbidity current, this time slowing data transfer during regional coronavirus (COVID-2019) lockdown. These cables had not experienced faults due to natural causes in the previous 19 years. The two cable-breaking flows are associated with a major flood along the Congo River, which produced the highest discharge (72,000m3) recorded at Kinshasa since the early 1960s, and this flood peak reached the river mouth on ~30th December 2019. However, the cable-breaking turbidity currents occurred 2-10 weeks after the flood peak and coincided with unusually large spring tides. Thus, the large cable-breaking flows in 2020 are caused by a combination of a major river flood and tides; and this can provide a basis for predicting the likelihood of future cable-breaking flows. Older (1883-1937) cable breaks in the Congo Submarine Canyon occurred in temporal clusters, sometimes after one or more years of high river discharge. Increased hazards to cables may therefore persist for several years after one or more river floods, which cumulatively prime the river mouth for cable-breaking flows. The 14-16th January 2020 flow accelerated from 5 to 8 m/s with distance, such that the closest cable to shore did not break, whilst two cables further from shore were broken. The largest turbidity currents may increase in power with distance from shore, and are more likely to overspill from their channel in distal sites. Thus, for the largest and most infrequent turbidity currents, locations further from shore can face lower-frequency but higher-magnitude hazards, which may need to be factored into cable route planning. Observations off Taiwan in 2006-2015, and the 2020 events in the Congo Submarine Canyon, show that although multiple cables were broken by fast (> 5 m/s) turbidity currents, some intervening cables survived. This indicates that local factors can determine whether a cable breaks or not. Repeat seabed surveys of the canyon-channel floor show that erosion during turbidity currents is patchy and concentrated around steeper areas (knickpoints) in the canyon profile, which may explain why only some cables break. If possible, cables should be routed away from knickpoints, also avoiding locations just up-canyon from knickpoints, as knickpoints move up-slope. This study provides key new insights into long runout cable-breaking turbidity currents, and the hazards they pose to seafloor telecommunication cables.
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Prédiction distillée sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Apprise à partir de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Gemma. Le mode candidate est l'union des têtes enseignantes seuillées; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont ni des étiquettes humaines ni des étiquettes directes de modèles de pointe.
Scores Codex et Gemma par catégorie
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,001 | 0,000 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Communication savante | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Science ouverte | 0,001 | 0,001 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,000 | 0,001 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule tête enseignante, pas un consensus.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».