Distributed acoustic sensing for detecting near surface hydroacoustic signals

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a technology that turns a fiber-optic cable into an acoustic sensor by measuring the phase change of backscattered light caused by changes in strain from an acoustic field. In October 2022, 9 days of DAS and co-located hydrophone data were collected in the Puget Sound near Seattle, WA. Passive data were continuously recorded for the duration and a broadband source was fired from several locations and depths on the first and last days. This dataset provides comparisons between DAS and hydrophone measurements and demonstrates the ability of DAS to measure acoustics signals up to ∼700 Hz.