Abstract: Obtaining shallow underground structures in densely populated areas at a low cost and with reliability, is of great importance for both earthquake safety assessments and underground space development. Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is an emerging observation technology that has developed rapidly in recent years and has different sensing mechanism from traditional seismometers. It can achieve high-density and long-distance vibration measurements using an ordinary communication optical cable and an interrogation unit. We used a 460 m buried optical fiber recorded for 12 hours of background noise in Fangshan, Beijing, to obtain the Rayleigh wave phase velocity dispersion curve and invert the underground shallow S-wave velocity profile. A low-velocity soil layer with a thickness of about 15 m and little undulation, which was similar to the results obtained using the traditional ambient noise H/V spectral ratio method, was observed, however, with more detailed structural information. DAS high-resolution near-surface velocity structure detection is feasible, if existed long-distance buried optical cable resources can be utilized, it will provide a new means for low-cost, high-resolution imaging of the near-surface.

Key words: Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), Ambient noise tomography, Shear wave velocity struct of shallow surface, H/V spectral ratio method