Design of the shell project Seafloor Earthquake Measurement System (SEMS)

Technical Report · Sun Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:6691061

Hickerson, J P; Lopez, A A

A new generation system which measures strong motion in marine sediments has been developed and deployed. The system consists of three subsystems: a seafloor data acquisition package and two shipboard packages that command and record data from the seafloor package. Communication between the two systems is via an acoustic telemetry system. The seafloor unit is powered by lithium batteries and has an operational life of four years. The seafloor unit is microprocessor controlled and uses a three-axis accelerometer package to continuously measure sediment motions from .001 to 10 g's. These data are digitized at a 100 hertz rate and, if they meet the preestablished event selection criterion, they are stored in an eight-million bit, nonvolatile, magnetic bubble memory. In addition to recording seismic data, the shipboard subsystem can monitor the status of the seafloor package and change the operating characteristics, if necessary. The paper describes the design, development, and deployment of the Seafloor Earthquake Measurement System. 10 refs., 17 figs., 4 tabs.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-76DP00789
• OSTI ID: 6691061
• Report Number(s): SAND-85-2604; ON: DE87007946
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
580201* -- Geophysics-- Seismology & Tectonics-- (1980-1989)
ACOUSTICS
COMMUNICATIONS
COMPUTERS
DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEMS
DATA PROCESSING
DATA TRANSMISSION
DESIGN
EARTHQUAKES
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MEASURING METHODS
MEMORY DEVICES
MICROELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
MICROPROCESSORS
PROCESSING
REMOTE SENSING
SEA BED
SEDIMENTS
SEISMIC ARRAYS
SEISMIC DETECTORS
SEISMIC EVENTS
SERVICE LIFE
SITE SELECTION
TELEMETRY