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Smartphones could be used as pocket seismometers

1,287 views · Published 6 January 2013 · 0:38 · Indexed 12 November 2026

Channel: News Direct · 2013 · News & Politics

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Researchers from the Berkeley Seismic Laboratory at the University of California Berkeley are working to turn smartphones into effective pocket-sized seismometers to help detect and investigate earthquakes. Smartphones contain accelerometers that can detect and monitor vibration so that your screen always faces up. Researchers are developing an app that will record tremors during earthquakes and then report the data back to a central server over the cell network. The prevalence of smartphones now means that researchers could get detailed information one who felt what and where. 

Researchers selected several models of smartphones and placed them onto the lab's shake table, an instrument that can simulate different grades of tremors. The results showed that smartphone accelerometers could pick up the shaking. The Berkeley team also developed an algorithm that can filter out human noise, like walking, running or driving. Having good information on the amount of shaking in an earthquake from various locations is important data. The team also think smartphones seismic network could have the potential to feed information directly into the earthquake early warning system.

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