Wiechert earthquake station
The Wiechertsche seismological station was a seismological observatory on the slopes of the mountain, a spur of the grove hill at Goettingen .
It was built in 1902 under the direction of Emil Wiechert after the world's first institute for geophysics had been established at the University of Göttingen . 1925 was seismological by the so-called New earthquake house expanded. It houses several seismographs developed by Wiechert . These are the oldest of their kind and became the model for many other seismographs. They are also the only seismographs that have been recording data almost continuously for over 100 years until today. The Wiechert earthquake observatory is the only facility that enables a direct comparison of major earthquakes in the past, such as the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco , with earthquakes today.
Until 2005, the earthquake observatory was operated by the University of Göttingen. When operations were due to cease, half of the site was taken over by the Wiechert'sche Erdbebenwarte Göttingen eV association in order to continue operations and make the earthquake observatory accessible to the public.
Historical background
In 1897 Emil Wiechert came from Königsberg to Göttingen, where he succeeded in constructing a seismograph that provided scientifically useful records of the structure of the earth's interior. In the following year he becomes associate professor and director of the Earth Magnetic Institute. In the autumn of 1901, the expanded Institute for Geophysics moved into the earthquake house on the Hainberg, which began operations in 1902. In January 1903, continuous seismic recordings with the astatic horizontal seismograph began. From 1905, the recordings with the vertical seismograph and the 17-ton pendulum are used. In addition to Göttingen, the Wiechert horizontal seismographs were also used in Leipzig, Potsdam, Strasbourg, Jena, Hamburg, Uppsala and Samoa until 1906. This enabled the complete recording of the P, S and surface waves of the San Francisco earthquake. In 1908 the experiments with the Mintrop sphere begin. The earthquake observatory's records can register any testing of nuclear explosions in the ground.
Seismic research has not been carried out in the earthquake station since 2003, and in 2005 the Institute for Geophysics ceases to operate the earthquake station. The land is being offered for sale by the state of Lower Saxony and part of it will become the property of the Wiechert'sche Erdbebenwarte Göttingen eV, which put the control room back into operation and made the technology that had been in use for over a hundred years accessible to visitors. The demolition of the historically valuable building was prevented by an application for monument protection.
Mintrop Ball Drop Tower
The so-called Mintrop sphere , which was used by Ludger Mintrop from 1908 to create small, artificial earthquakes, is also located on the site . The four-ton steel ball was dropped from a 14 meter high scaffolding. Mintrop was a student of Wiechert and is considered a co-founder of modern geophysics. He recorded the tremors with so-called portable seismographs. He succeeded in creating a three-dimensional image of the areas under the earth's surface. This made it possible, for example, to localize the boundary areas between solid and liquid rock layers and to draw conclusions about the nature of geological structures near the surface. With the knowledge gained, Mintrop developed the refraction seismic procedure and founded the company Seismos for the exploration of raw material deposits , which became known in particular through the discovery of important oil fields.
Old and new earthquake house
In the main room of the so-called "Old Earthquake House" there are three functional measuring devices that have been in operation since 1902. An astatic horizontal seismograph, the 17 ton pendulum and the vertical seismograph. The building stands with a floor slab made of stamped concrete on a subsurface made of rocky shell limestone; it protects the sensitive seismic measuring devices from heat and moisture. The earthquake house consists of an anteroom, the instrument room and a sooting room for producing the soot papers on which the seismographic recordings are made. These paper rolls are then treated with varnish so that the records can be stored permanently.
In 1925 the "New Earthquake House" was built on the northeast side of the earthquake house. The building was used by the institute to develop new seismographs and also contained a calibration device. Demonstrations for groups of visitors take place in a room with historical equipment. A modern broadband seismometer has also been located here since 2005. The Göttingen earthquake station is a member of the network of German earthquake stations. The data is continuously transmitted to the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) in Hanover via the Internet.
The Samoa Hut and the Astronomical Hut
On the Mulinun peninsula ( Samoa ) in the western Pacific, a branch of the Göttingen earthquake station was set up for the German researchers in 1902. The measuring station was at a sufficient distance to be able to record comparative geophysical values.
The astronomical hut dates back to 1902 and houses a passage instrument supported on a large stone pedestal . This instrument was aimed at the firmament and was used for astronomical time determination. An electrical impulse was linked to the seismogram so that the seismic data that were recorded at different locations around the world could be synchronized.
The Gauss House
In 1833, Carl Friedrich Gauß had a wooden building built in the garden of the Göttingen observatory in order to carry out experiments, particularly on geomagnetism, together with the physicist Wilhelm Weber . This building was continued to be used and expanded by Weber after his death from 1855 to 1866. His successor Ernst Schering also carried out research there until 1897. Shortly afterwards, the Institute for Geophysics was founded and the Gaußhaus was moved to the site of the earthquake station in 1902. A special feature of the house was that no materials with magnetic properties were used for the construction, so that magnetic experiments could be carried out as trouble-free as possible. Where metal was necessary, copper, brass or zinc were used.
Head of the earthquake control room
- Emil Wiechert (1898–1928)
- Gustav Angenheister (1928–1945)
- Julius Bartels (1946–1964)
- Manfred Siebert (1964–1992)
- Ulrich Christensen (1992-2003)
- Wiechert'sche Erdquebenwarte Göttingen eV (since 2005)
literature
- Emil Wiechert: A highly sensitive astatic pendulum for the mechanical registration of earthquakes . In: Gerland's contributions to geophysics . tape 6 , issue 3. Berlin 1903, OCLC 907893358 .
- J. Meyer: Artificial ground vibrations with the Mintrop ball . In: Herbert Birett, German Geophysical Society (Hrsg.): On the history of geophysics: Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the German Geophysical Society . Springer-Verlag, Berlin / New York 1974, ISBN 0-387-07002-8 , pp. 67-71 .
- Wiechert earthquake station (PDF).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ History - Wiechert'sche earthquake station in Göttingen. (No longer available online.) Erdbebenwarte.de, archived from the original on October 5, 2016 ; Retrieved October 5, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Over rough and smooth - the rescue of the Göttingen earthquake watchdog by the association "Wiechert'sche Erdbebenwarte eV" (PDF).
- ↑ Mintrop Sphere. (No longer available online.) Erdbebenwarte.de, archived from the original on October 5, 2016 ; Retrieved October 5, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Old earthquake house. (No longer available online.) Erdbebenwarte.de, archived from the original on August 1, 2016 ; Retrieved October 5, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ New earthquake house. (No longer available online.) Erdbebenwarte.de, archived from the original on November 10, 2016 ; Retrieved October 5, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ GG Angenheister: On the history of geophysics . Ed .: H. Birett, K. Helbig Prof Dr, W. Kertz Prof Dr, U. Schmucker Prof Dr. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 1974, ISBN 978-3-642-65999-7 , History of the Samoa Observatory from 1902 to 1921, p. 43-66 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-65998-0_6 .
- ↑ Astronomical Hut. (No longer available online.) Erdbebenwarte.de, archived from the original on August 1, 2016 ; Retrieved October 5, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Gauss House. (No longer available online.) Erdbebenwarte.de, archived from the original on October 5, 2016 ; Retrieved October 5, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 51 ° 32 ′ 42.8 " N , 9 ° 57 ′ 52.8" E