- Author: Robert J Keiffer
The University of California Berkeley's Earth and Planetary Science - Berkeley Seismological Lab has operated a seisomograph at the UC Hopland Research & Extension Center in SE Mendocino County since October 1994. The HOPS Seismograph is part of the Berkeley Digital Seismic Network (BDSN) which can be viewed at http://seismo.berkeley.edu/bdsn/station_book/hops.html By checking them out you can tell "what's been shakin' at Hopland" and elsewhere in northern California.
Located on bedrock within the Franciscan Geologic Formation, the instruments are located in a steel and concrete vault benched into a hillside. The vault is oriented north/south to minimize the effects of solar heating. The concrete pier is covered with 4 inches of insulation on the sides and 8 inches of insulation on the top. The actual broadband seismometer and strong-motion accelerometers, shown here in the photo, send seismic reading information to a datalogger and other supporting equipment in an adjacent room.
The HOPS seismograph one one small component of a large infrastructure tied to the UCB Seismological Laboratory that provides robust and reliable real-time data and information on northern California earthquakes to government, public and private institutions, and to the public in partnership with the US Geological Survey, CalEMA and other collaborating institutions.