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First Permanent Undersea Earthquake Monitor

Posted by michael on from the waiting-for-the-big-one dept.

No_Weak_Heart writes "UC Berkley reports on the successful deployment of the first permanent broadband earthquake monitor on the California seafloor. The instrument, similar to this one , is the first of a planned network that will help Berkeley seismologists and MBARI geologists measure earthquake activity from the ocean side of the San Gregorio fault zone. The seismograph was put in place by the Ventana, a remotely operated vehicle(ROV)."

5 comments

  1. I thought... by eXtro · · Score: 3, Funny

    Las Angeles was the first undersea earthquake monitor.

    --

    Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware

  2. You never know what will come from a technology by Tom+Veil · · Score: 1

    A few years back I remember Scott Adams writing (in "The Dilbert Future") that cable lines would be a great way to provide internet service, but he didn't think the cable companies would ever get their acts together about it.

    But now that people are used to the idea of transmitting something other than television over broadband cables, we're seeing the technology take on a whole new life. Who would have dreamed, when broadband first came around, that geophysicists would use it in the study of earthquakes?

    Hopefully this will bring us a little closer to more accurate earthquake prediction. It seems like every few months we hear another report of thousands dead in a major quake. The more we understand about the earth, the better off we are.

    --

    There's nothing you have that they can't take away: Absolute zero, Gentle Jack, bottom line.

    1. Re:You never know what will come from a technology by No_Weak_Heart · · Score: 4, Informative

      Hmm... perhaps I should have mentioned this in the story item, I suspected there might be some confusion around this.

      The "broadband" in question is not for the transmission of data, but rather the range of the seismograph unit. Broadband seismometers can register sound waves with periods from one-tenth of a second to 100 seconds.

      Seismologists get better data if their instruments can "listen" to a broad range of frequencies. This has always been problematic, in that their is a lot of noise in underwater settings, and that's why they go to the trouble of sticking the unit in a caisson imbedded in the seafloor.

      In Northern California the only one which is on the other side of the fault is an instrument located on the Farallon Islands.

    2. Re:You never know what will come from a technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's more or less the same problem that the SETI people face,
      perhaps there should be some sharing of algorithms? After all
      when it comes to the math this is all pretty similar, no?

  3. Quake detectors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Great, so the gaming geeks have started playing Undersea Quake(TM)!