First deep underground observation of rotational signals from an earthquake at teleseismic distance using a large ring laser gyroscope

Abstract

Recent advances in large ring laser gyroscopes (RLG) technologies opened the possibility to observe rotations of the ground with sensitivities up to $10^{-11}$ $\frac{rad}{s}$ over the frequency band of seismological interest (0.01-1Hz), thus opening the way to a new geophysical discipline, i.e. rotational seismology. A measure of rotations in seismology is of fundamental interest for (a) the determination of all the six degrees of freedom that characterize a rigid body motion, and (b) the quantitative estimate of the rotational motions contaminating ground translation measurements obtained from standard seismometers. Within this framework, this paper presents and describes GINGERino, a new large observatory-class RLG located in Gran Sasso underground laboratory (LNGS), one national laboratories of the INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare). We also report unprecedented observations and analyses of the roto-translational signals from a tele-seismic event observed in such a deep underground environment.

References in corpus (2)

• Direct measurement of diurnal polar motion by ring laser gyroscopes
• Horizontal rotation signals detected by "G-Pisa" ring laser for the Mw=9.0, March 2011, Japan earthquake

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Deep underground rotation measurements: GINGERino ring laser gyroscope in Gran Sasso
• First Results of GINGERino, a deep underground ringlaser