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Autonomous BBOBS-NX (NX-2G) for New Era of Ocean Bottom Broadband Seismology
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  • Hajime Shiobara,
  • Aki Ito,
  • Hiroko Sugioka,
  • Masanao SHINOHARA
Hajime Shiobara

Corresponding Author:shio@eri.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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Aki Ito

Corresponding Author:iaki@jamstec.go.jp

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Hiroko Sugioka

Corresponding Author:hikari@pearl.kobe-u.ac.jp

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Masanao SHINOHARA

Corresponding Author:mshino@eri.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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Abstract

The broadband ocean bottom seismometer (BBOBS) and its new generation system (BBOBS-NX) have been developed in Japan, and we performed several test and practical observations to create and establish a new category of the ocean floor broadband seismology, since 1999. Now, the data obtained by our BBOBS and BBOBS-NX is proved to be adequate for broadband seismic analyses. Especially, the BBOBS- NX can obtain the horizontal data comparable to land sites in longer periods (10 s –). Moreover, the BBOBST-NX is in practical evaluation for the mobile tilt observation that enables dense geodetic monitoring. The BBOBS-NX system is a powerful tool, although, it has intrinsic limitation of the ROV operation. If this system can be used without the ROV, like as the BBOBS, it should lead us a true breakthrough of ocean bottom seismology. Hereafter, the new autonomous BBOBS-NX is noted as NX-2G in short. The main problem to realize the NX-2G is a tilt of the sensor unit on landing, which exceed the acceptable limit (±8°) in about 50%. As we had no evidence at which moment and how this tilt occurred, we tried to observe it during the BBOBST-NX landing in 2015 by attaching a video camera and an acceleration logger. The result shows that the tilt on landing was determined by the final posture of the system at the penetration into the sediment, and the large oscillating tilt more than ±10° was observed in descending. The function of the NX-2G system is based on 3 stage operations as shown in the image. The glass float is aimed not only to obtain enough buoyancy to extract the sensor unit, but also to suppress the oscillating tilt of the system in descending. In Oct. 2016, we made the first in-situ test of the NX-2G system with a ROV. It was dropped from the sea surface with the video camera and the acceleration logger. The ROV was used to watch the operation of the system at the seafloor. The landing looked well and it was examined from the acceleration data. As the maximum tilt in descending was about ±2.5°, the glass float effectively suppressed the oscillating tilt. The extraction of the sensor unit was also succeeded with the total buoyancy of about 75 kgf within about 2.5 minutes. As the final step experiment, the one-year-long observation of this NX-2G system has been started in this April with the BBOBS, to obtain simultaneous data for the noise level evaluation.