Performance of an Optical Seismometer from 1 Hz to 10 Hz

Abstract We compare the performance of four different instruments that measure the vertical component of motion of an inertial mass—an STS1 seismometer, an STS2 seismometer, a superconducting gravity meter, and an optical seismometer—operating inside the mine at the Black Forest Observatory near Schiltach in southwest Germany. Simultaneous, collocated operation of these sensors offers an opportunity to test the calibration, response, and performance of each instrument. We estimate noise floors from the tidal bands to 10 Hz. We note small nonlinearities in the suspension of the STS1, which are normally suppressed by analog signal processing and feedback or, in the optical version, by digital signal processing alone. The results demonstrate that the optical seismometer utilizing an STS1 suspension can provide observatory‐quality data over a bandwidth from tidal frequencies to at least 10 Hz and over a large dynamic range.