Monitoring earthquakes with gravity meters

• Main Authors: T.M. Niebauer, Jeff MacQueen, Daniel Aliod, Olivier Francis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. 2011-08-01
• Series: Geodesy and Geodynamics
• Subjects: gPhone grarity meter; superconducting gravity meter(SG); monitoring eavtguake
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674984715301920

Seismic waves from a magnitude 8.3 earthquake in Japan were consistently recorded by five nearly identical gPhone gravity meters in Colorado. Good correlation was also found in the response of two different types of gravity meters and a standard seismometer in Walferdange, Luxembourg to an earthquake of magnitude 8.2 in Japan, indicating that all of them were capable of measuring the surface waves reliably. The gravity meters, however, recorded 11 separate arrivals of Raleigh waves, while the seismometer only one. Thus the gravity meters may be useful for obtaining new information in the study of seismic velocities, attenuation and dispersion.