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Seismologists study earthquakes and can use this data to determine where and how big a particular earthquake is. To record the actual motion of the ground in all three dimensions, seismologists need to use three separate sensors within the same instrument.
The energy measured in a seismogram may result from an earthquake or from some other source, such as an explosion. Seismograms can record many things, and record many little waves, called microseisms.
Seismic waves lose much of their energy in traveling over great distances. But sensitive detectors (seismometers) can record theses waves emitted by even the smallest earthquakes. When these detectors are connected to a system that produces a permanent recording, they are called seismographs.
Earthquakes are recorded by a seismographic network . Each seismic station in the network measures the movement of the ground at that site. The slip of one block of rock over another in an earthquake releases energy that makes the ground vibrate.
A record produced by a seismograph on a display screen or paper printout is called a seismogram. How a seismometer works Geophysicist Horst Rademacher of the University of California, Berkeley, simulating an earthquake in the classroom and explaining how a simple seismograph records Earth's shaking.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
A seismograph records oscillation of the ground caused by seismic waves that travel from their point of origin through Earth or along its surface. The seismogram of a nearby small earthquake has a simple pattern, showing the arrival of P waves (longitudinal waves, which vibrate in the direction of propagation), S waves (transverse waves —that ...
Strong-motion seismographs employ accelerometers 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 ...
