Japan beefs up undersea quake monitoring system

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The Japan Meteorological Agency started work Thursday to beef up its undersea earthquake monitoring system. The system will be placed 1,000 to 2,000 meters beneath the ocean surface to gather data on seismic activity that will be transmitted by fiber-optic submarine cable to an above-ground observation center.

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The cable system will provide the agency with an additional five earthquake monitoring devices and three tsunami monitoring devices on the ocean floor. After the system is put in place, there will be nine ocean bottom earthquake monitoring devices in the region and four tsunami monitoring devices.

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The system will be placed on the seabed off the Pacific coast of central Japan to support monitoring devices already in place.

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The equipment will enable the Meteorological Agency to gather seismic information from even the smallest of ocean trench earthquakes. Japan has started a world-first early warning system for earthquakes by monitoring seismic waves.

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