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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)."

1 of 5 comments (clear)

  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.