| Abstract: | The seismometer-ground system is represented by a damped oscillatory system. Relatively simple approximation formulas are derived to express the coupling between ground and seismometer. These expressions are applicable in seismic exploration. The coupling is that of a mass, suspended by a spring, to the surface that the ground would have in absence of the seismometer. It results in a low-pass filtering of the ground motion, which is due to the presence of the seismometer. This effect is expressed in a unit-impulse response. It appears that, over a sufficiently homogeneous ground and for low frequencies, one has a true coupling between ground and seismometer. To obtain a sufficiently large pass-band, a low seismometer housing-mass together with a not too small housing radius are necessary. |
