Republic of the Philippines

NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Cabanatuan City

College of Engineering
CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

EARTHQUAKE RECORDS AND

MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
(CHAPTER III)
Why Monitor Earthquakes? (Carpio, Aira Isahmay G.)
Purposes of Earthquake Instrumentation
 Hazard – study of earthquakes and their effects, where they occur, how big and how often (the
task of a seismologist).
 Vulnerability of structures – prevent collapse and minimize structural damage (the task of an
earthquake engineer).
 Risk – alerts, warnings and alarms for preparation and emergency response (the tasks of
management and operating staff).

What Is Seismology?
Seismology is the study of earthquakes and seismic waves that move through and around the earth.
A seismologist is a scientist who studies earthquakes and seismic waves.

What Are Seismic Waves?

Seismic waves are the waves of energy caused by the sudden breaking of rock within the earth or an
explosion. They are the energy that travels through the earth and is recorded on seismographs.

How Are Earthquake Magnitudes Measured?

The Richter Scale

There are a number of ways to measure the magnitude of an earthquake. The first
widely-used method, the Richter scale, was developed by Charles F. Richter in 1934. It
used a formula based on amplitude of the largest wave recorded on a specific type of
seismometer and the distance between the earthquake and the seismometer. That
scale was specific to California earthquakes; other scales, based on wave amplitudes
and total earthquake duration, were developed for use in other situations and they
were designed to be consistent with Richter’s scale.
The Moment Magnitude Scale
Unfortunately, many scales, such as the Richter scale, do not provide accurate estimates for large
magnitude earthquakes. Today the moment magnitude scale, abbreviated MW, is preferred because it
works over a wider range of earthquake sizes and is applicable globally. The moment magnitude scale is
based on the total moment release of the earthquake. Moment is a product of the distance a fault moved
and the force required to move it. It is derived from modeling recordings of the earthquake at multiple
stations.

The Mercalli Scale

Another way to measure the strength of an earthquake is to use the Mercalli scale.
Invented by Giuseppe Mercalli in 1902, this scale uses the observations of the people
who experienced the earthquake to estimate its intensity.

Some things that affect the amount of damage that occurs are:
 the building designs,
 the distance from the epicenter,
 and the type of surface material (rock or dirt) the buildings rest on.

How Are Earthquakes Studied?

Seismologists study earthquakes by going out and looking at the damage caused by the earthquakes and
by using seismographs. A seismograph is an instrument that records the shaking of the earth's surface
caused by seismic waves. The term seismometer is also used to refer to the same device, and the two
terms are often used interchangeably.
The First Seismograph
The first seismograph was invented in 132 A.D. by the Chinese astronomer and mathematician Chang
Heng. He called it an "earthquake weathercock."

Modern Seismographs
Most seismographs today are electronic, but a basic seismograph is made of a drum with paper on it, a
bar or spring with a hinge at one or both ends, a weight, and a pen. When there is an earthquake,
everything in the seismograph moves except the weight with the pen on it. As the drum and paper shake
next to the pen, the pen makes squiggly lines on the paper, creating a record of the earthquake. This
record made by the seismograph is called a seismogram.

How Do I Read a Seismogram?

When you look at a seismogram, there will be wiggly lines all across it. These are all the seismic waves
that the seismograph has recorded. Most of these waves were so small that nobody felt them. These tiny
microseisms can be caused by heavy traffic near the seismograph, waves hitting a beach, the wind, and
any number of other ordinary things that cause some shaking of the seismograph. There may also be some
little dots or marks evenly spaced along the paper. These are marks for every minute that the drum of the
seismograph has been turning. How far apart these minute marks are will depend on what kind of
seismograph you have.

So which wiggles are the earthquake? The P wave will be the first wiggle that is
bigger than the rest of the little ones (the microseisms). Because P waves are the
fastest seismic waves, they will usually be the first ones that your seismograph
records. The next set of seismic waves on your seismogram will be the S waves.
These are usually bigger than the P waves. If there aren't any S waves marked on
your seismogram, it probably means the earthquake happened on the other side of
the planet. S waves can't travel through the liquid layers of the earth so these waves
never made it to your seismograph.
How Do I Locate That Earthquake's Epicenter?
To figure out just where that earthquake happened, you need to look at your seismogram and you need
to know what at least two other seismographs recorded for the same earthquake. You will also need a
map of the world, a ruler, a pencil, and a compass for drawing circles on the map.
Here's an example of a seismogram:

Accelerators (Escalante, Aira Camille G.)

Accelerograph- Refers to an instrument used for recording acceleration of the ground during an
earthquake. It is used to monitor structures for earthquake response. It is commonly called accelerometer.
Accelerogram- Graphic record in chart form, produced by an accelerograph in response to seismic ground
motion.

Accelerograph maintenance
It is essential that the instrument be well protected from such environmental conditions as flooding or
excessive summer temperatures and from tampering or vandalism.

Accelerograph Installation
The accelerograph should be firmly bolted to concrete foundation. The accelerograph which is order of
20x20x40 cm in size, often can be conveniently installed in the corner of small structure such as an office,
instrument room, or storage room.

Seismoscope (Flores, Micaela)

-is an instrument that gives a qualitative measure of the oscillatory motion produced by an earthquake
or other disturbance of the earth’s surface. Unlike the seismograph, it lacks a device to calibrate that time.

Who invented the first seismoscope?

-in AD 132, Zhang Heng of China’s Han dynasty invented the first earthquake sensing device and that
was the seismocope, which was called Houfeng Didong Yi (literally, “instrument for measuring the
seasonal winds and the movements of the earth”). And he also believed that earthquakes were caused by
wind and air.

To indicate the direction of a distant earthquake, Zhang’s device dropped a bronze ball from one of the
eight tubed projections shaped as dragon heads; the ball fell into the mouth of the corresponding metal
object shaped as a toad, each representing direction in which the seismic wave was travelling. His device
had eight mobile arms (eight directions) connected with cranks having catch mechanism at the periphery.
When tripped, a cranked and right angle lever would raise a dragon head and release a ball supported by
the lower jaw of the dragon head. The seismoscope device also included a vertical pin passing through a
slot in the crank, a catch device, a pivot on a projection, a sling suspending the pendulum, an attachment
for the sling, and a horizontal bar supporting the pendulum.

There is no clear historical documents and physical remains of Zhang Heng’s seismoscope device. Several
reconstruction designs have been attempted to replicate Heng’s original seismoscope which today is still
a famous but mysterious instrument. Many Scholars tried to reconstruct Zhang Heng’s seismoscope in the
past 150 years. In the early stage some exterior appearance of Zhang Heng ‘s seismoscope were proposed.
Later the interior mechanical structures with various operating fuctions were presented. It is believed that
the design principle of Zhang’s seismoscope and early modern seismograph are based on the principle of
inertia.

Earthquake Network (Dela Cruz, Kathryn)

Earthquake Network is a research project that aims to develop and maintain

a crowdsourced smartphone-based earthquake warning system at a global level. The system uses the on-
board accelerometers in privately-owned smartphones of volunteer participants to detect earthquake
waves (rather than conventional seismometers). When it detects an earthquake, it issues an earthquake
warning to alert people who the damaging waves of the earthquake have not yet reached.
The project started on January 1, 2013 with the release of the homonymous Android application
Earthquake Network. The author of the research project and developer of the smartphone application is
Francesco Finazzi of the University of Bergamo, Italy.
Scientific research

Earthquake warning systems strive to rapidly detect earthquakes and alert the population in
advance. When the system detects an earthquake, a potentially large number of people in affected
locations not too close to the epicenter can receive the warning several seconds (5 to 60) before damaging
shaking occurs. This is possible because data flows though the phone system faster than earthquake
waves travel.

The Earthquake Network project is expected to solve 4 main problems related to earthquake detection
and location using a smartphone network.
Real-time detection
To be effective, the earthquake warning system of the Earthquake Network project must detect
the earthquake as fast as possible. It detects earthquakes through real-time analysis of the data that the
smartphone network sends to the central server. Since smartphones detect accelerations not necessarily
induced by an earthquake, the server implements a statistical algorithm that recognizes real earthquakes
against background noise. The statistical methods at the basis of the algorithm provides control over the
probability of false alarm.

Epicenter estimation
When detection occurs, it is important to obtain an estimate of the epicenter in order to locate
the geographic areas that was affected by the earthquake. Two epicenter estimation algorithms for
crowdsourced smartphone-based earthquake early warning systems have been developed and they are
detailed in a paper published on the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America journal.
Peak ground acceleration
The accelerations recorded by a dense smartphone network can be used to produce high
resolution peak ground acceleration maps for the detected earthquakes. The task is complicated by the
fact that smartphones are not secured to the ground, so they don't directly measure ground acceleration.
If properly calibrated, however, data from a large number of smartphones may be sufficient to estimate
ground acceleration.
Magnitude estimation
The earthquake magnitude is an important parameter, as it defines the energy released by the
earthquake event and helps evaluate earthquake severity in terms of potential damages to property and
people. Magnitude estimation using the data collected by the smartphone network is currently under
study.