seismograph

seismograph
seismographic /suyz'meuh graf"ik, suys'-/, seismographical, adj.
/suyz"meuh graf', -grahf', suys"-/, n.
any of various instruments for measuring and recording the vibrations of earthquakes.
[1855-60; SEISMO- + -GRAPH]

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Introduction

      instrument that makes a record of seismic waves caused by an earthquake, explosion, or other Earth-shaking phenomenon. Seismographs are equipped with electromagnetic sensors that translate ground motions into electrical changes, which are processed and recorded by the instruments' analog or digital circuits. A record produced by a seismograph on a display screen or paper printout is called a seismogram. Although originally designed to locate natural earthquakes, seismographs have many other uses, such as petroleum exploration, investigation of the Earth's crust and lower layers, and monitoring of volcanic activity.

Development of the first seismographs
      An early seismic instrument called the seismoscope made no time record of ground oscillations but simply indicated that shaking had occurred. A Chinese scholar, Chang Heng, invented such an instrument as early as AD 132. It was cylindrical in shape with eight dragon heads arranged around its upper circumference, each with a ball in its mouth. Around the lower circumference were eight frogs, each directly under a dragon head. When an earthquake occurred, one of the balls was released from a dragon's mouth, probably by an internal pendulum, and was caught by a frog's mouth.

      A device involving water spillage was developed in 17th-century Italy. Later a water-filled bowl and still later a cup filled with mercury were used for detecting earthquakes and tremors. In 1855 Luigi Palmieri of Italy designed a seismometer, an instrument that senses the amount of ground motion. Palmieri's seismometer consisted of several U-shaped tubes filled with mercury and oriented toward the different points of the compass. When the ground shook, the motion of the mercury made an electrical contact that stopped a clock and simultaneously started a recording drum on which the motion of a float on the surface of mercury was registered. This device thus indicated time of occurrence and the relative intensity and duration of the ground motion.

      The basic problem in measuring ground motions is to attain a steady point that remains fixed when the ground moves. Various types of pendulums (pendulum) have been used for this purpose. The simplest type is a common pendulum in which a heavy mass is suspended by a wire or rod from a fixed point (as in a clock). Other forms are the inverted pendulum, in which a heavy mass is fixed to the upper end of a vertical rod pointed at its lower end, and the horizontal pendulum, in which a rod with a mass on its end is suspended at two points so as to swing in a nearly horizontal plane instead of a vertical plane. In 1840 a seismometer based on the common pendulum was installed near Comrie in Perthshire, Scotland.

 Seismograph developments occurred rapidly in 1880 when Sir James Alfred Ewing (Ewing, Sir Alfred), Thomas Gray, and John Milne (Milne, John), British scientists working in Japan, began to study earthquakes. Following a severe earthquake that occurred at Yokohama near Tokyo in that year, they organized the Seismological Society of Japan. Under its auspices various devices, forerunners of today's seismograph, were invented. Among the instruments constructed in this period was Milne's famous horizontal pendulum seismograph (shown in the diagram—>). A boom (B), to which the mass (M) was attached, was suspended horizontally by a pivot (P) and a silk thread (T) fixed to a point above the pivot. A thin plate (C), in which a narrow slit was cut parallel to the boom, was attached to the end of the boom. A similar plate with a slit at right angles to the upper plate was fixed on the top of a box containing a recording drum (D). A ray of light from an oil lamp passed through both slits and formed a small spot of light on a sheet of light-sensitive graph paper (bromide paper) wrapped on the recording drum. Milne successfully used this seismograph to record several earthquakes in Japan; then, after returning to England, he established a small worldwide seismographic network using such instruments.

      The horizontal pendulum seismograph was improved greatly after World War II. The Press-Ewing seismograph, developed in the United States for recording long-period waves, was widely used throughout the world. This device employed a Milne-type pendulum, but the pivot supporting the pendulum was replaced by an elastic wire to avoid friction.

Basic principles of the modern seismograph
      If a common pendulum is free to swing in one direction and if the ground moves rapidly in the direction of freedom of the pendulum while the pendulum is motionless, the pendulum will tend to remain in place through inertia. If the ground moves back and forth (oscillates) and if the period of ground motion (the time necessary for one complete oscillation) is sufficiently shorter than the period of free oscillation of the pendulum, the pendulum will again lag, and the movement of the ground relative to the pendulum can be recorded. The magnitude of this movement is commonly amplified electrically. When the period of the pendulum is comparable to that of the ground motion, the seismograph will not exactly record the Earth's movement. The correction, however, can readily be computed mathematically.

      In general, then, the seismograph is an instrument in which the relative motion of pendulum and ground is recorded. It is equally possible to take the ratio between the deflection of the pendulum and the velocity (or acceleration) of the ground. This ratio is called the velocity (or acceleration) sensitivity of the seismograph.

      If free oscillation of the pendulum is not minimized, it will mask the proper recording of seismic waves. The simplest way to reduce (damp out) the free oscillation of a pendulum is to suspend it in a viscous (thick) liquid of which the resisting force is proportional to the velocity of the pendulum. In practice, the required resisting force is exerted by a special device called a damper. In an electromagnetic damper, the resisting force is created by electrical currents induced in a copper plate moving in a strong magnetic field.

      The ground can move in any of three directions, two horizontal and one vertical. Because each kind of movement must be separately recorded, three pendulums, one for each direction, are needed for a complete seismograph.

      Various methods of recording pendulum motion have been developed. In the mechanical method (now of historical interest only), a sheet of smoked paper was wrapped around a rotating drum, so mounted as to move with the Earth. A moving pen connected to the pendulum pressed lightly on the paper. The rotating drum shifted slightly with each revolution so that recorded lines were not superimposed on each other. The drum rotated without interruption; one sheet of paper usually lasted 24 hours. Though this method was simple and economical, the seismograph had to have a heavy mass to overcome the friction between pen and paper. In consequence, some mechanical seismographs weighed one ton or more. In the more modern optical method, pendulum motion causes a mirror to move; light is reflected by this mirror onto photosensitive paper wrapped on a drum. Thus, there is no friction to affect the pendulum.

      In the electromagnetic method, widely used today, a coil fixed to the mass of the pendulum moves in a magnetic field and creates an electric current. When the current is amplified electronically, high magnification is obtainable. Certain short-period seismographs of this type used for the observation of microearthquakes attain a magnification as high as 1,000,000 or more. In ordinary seismographic observation, the time of initiation of ground oscillations is recorded. Marks are placed on the seismogram once a minute; an extra one identifies the hour.

 All the seismographs described so far measure oscillatory motions of the ground at a given point. The strain seismograph, in contrast, employs no pendulum, and its operation depends on changes in the distance between two points on the ground. As shown schematically in the diagram—>, A and B are two piers separated by a distance, which may be 20 metres (65 feet) or more. One end of a rod (R) is fixed to pier B and the other placed near pier A. Earth strains resulting from seismic waves produce variations in the separation of the two piers; these variations are observable as changes in the distance between the free end of the rod and pier A. This type of seismograph was devised in 1935.

      Strong-motion seismographs, called accelerographs, are designed particularly to register intense movements of the ground, mainly for engineering purposes—i.e., antiseismic construction in earthquake-prone areas such as Japan. Strong-motion seismographs employ accelerometers (accelerometer) as sensors, record digitally directly on magnetic tape or memory chips, and can measure ground acceleration up to twice gravity. Networks of accelerographs are now operative in several earthquake regions (e.g., California, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico), offering continuous direct recording linked to computers and the World Wide Web. Data on ground shaking are thus available within minutes of a local damaging earthquake.

Applications of the seismograph
      A seismograph records oscillation of the ground caused by seismic waves that travel from their point of origin through the Earth or along its surface. The seismogram of a nearby small earthquake is of simple pattern, showing the arrival of waves (longitudinal wave) (waves that vibrate (vibration) in the direction of propagation), waves (waves that vibrate at right angles to the direction of propagation), and surface waves. In the case of distant earthquakes or of nearby very large earthquakes, the seismogram pattern is more complicated because it shows various sorts of seismic waves that originate from one or many points but then may be reflected or refracted within the Earth's crust before reaching the seismograph. The relation between the arrival time of the P and S waves and the epicentral (epicentre) distance—i.e., the distance from the point of origin—is expressed by a time-distance curve, in which the arrival time is read on the vertical axis and the epicentral distance on the horizontal axis. If the arrival times of various seismic waves are read on the seismogram at a station and compared with the standard time-distance curves, the epicentral distance from that station (the distance of the centre of the earthquake from the recording station) can be determined. If the epicentral distance from at least three stations is known, the origin of the earthquake can be calculated by simple trigonometric methods.

      The eruption of a volcano is commonly accompanied by many small earthquakes, especially when a volcano resumes activity after a long dormant period. Observation with sensitive seismographs therefore plays an important role in the prediction of volcanic activity. Often a strong earthquake is preceded by small earthquakes. Observation of very small tremors with sensitive seismographs is helpful in predicting disastrous earthquakes.

      Seismographs sometimes detect small and long-continuing oscillations of the ground, called microseisms, that do not originate as earthquakes. The occurrence of some microseisms is related to storms at sea.

      Seismographs are used for detecting remote nuclear underground tests. In this activity, the relatively faint seismic waves generated by an underground explosion must be distinguished from natural tremors. If the seismic waves generated by an explosive charge are recorded by sensitive seismographs installed at various points in the neighbourhood of the explosion, the underground structure of the site can be determined by analyzing the time-distance curves of P waves, both direct waves and those reflected or refracted at the boundaries of underground layers. Depths of underground layers, their angle of inclination, and the speed of seismic waves in each layer can be determined. Since the discovery of a large oil field (petroleum refining) in the United States by this method in 1923, seismic surveying (seismic survey) has made rapid progress and is now used for oil and gas exploration. The improvement in the instruments and techniques achieved after World War II made it possible to determine the structure of the Earth's crust to a depth of 40 to 50 km (about 25 to 30 miles) by detonation of a small amount of explosive.

      Ground motions caused by dynamite blasts in mines, quarries, and public works also can be measured by the seismograph. Preliminary examinations based on seismographic measurements make it possible to estimate the intensity of shocks and, thus, evaluate the possibilities of damage caused by a given amount of dynamite. Rock bursts, in which rocks are ejected suddenly in deep pits or tunnels, are caused by increase of stress in the surrounding rocks. Experience in mines shows that an increase of small shocks detectable by highly sensitive geophones (Geophone)—portable seismometers for field use—generally indicates a rock burst hazard.

      Detection of vibrations on the lunar surface by seismographs is of fundamental importance in determining the internal structure, physical state, and tectonic (crustal) activity of the Moon. Moon seismographs were installed during the Apollo program starting in 1969. They contained three long-period seismometers and a single-component, short-period, vertical seismometer. Many moonquakes were recorded by these instruments. Similar instruments were placed on Mars by the Viking 1 and 2 landers in 1976 to determine the extent of seismic activity on that planet.

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Universalium. 2010.

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