Study of the telluric field using the submarine cable across the Sea of Japan

The coaxial telephone cable crossing the Sea of Japan was laid by ROSTELECOM (Russia), KDD (Japan), and the Northern Telegraph Company (Denmark) in 1969. In 1995, a new optical-fiber cable was put into operation, and the old cable was given to Russian and Japanese geophysics for studying the natural electric field variations in the Sea of Japan. This made it possible to analyze regional behavior of electrical variations in one of the marginal Russian seas using a measuring line longer than 700 km. This paper discusses preliminary results of the experiment that started on March 27, 1996 and aimed at solving two geophysical problems: (1) estimation of the electrical resistivity of the Sea of Japan lithosphere and (2) monitoring of the water mass transport.