Seismic measuring system including GPS receivers

A seismic measurement system including:

• a plurality of digitizer units and associated geophones for collecting data relating to seismic activities;
• one or more base GPS receivers with substantial views of at least portions of the sky, the one or more base GPS receivers providing tracking assistance information relating to GPS satellites in view;
• a plurality of slave GPS receivers at the remaining locations of the digitizer units with one or more of the slave GPS receivers operating in locations in which at various times the signals from GPS satellites in certain sky locations are unavailable, weakened or corrupted by multipath at the one or more slave GPS receivers, the slave GPS receivers utilizing the tracking assistance information to acquire and track signals from the GPS satellites and produce timing signals that are tied to the timing of the codes in the tracked GPS satellite signals to control the timing of data collection by the digitizer units;
• and
• a data recording and control center for collecting and analyzing the data provided by the respective digitizer units.

A seismic measurement system including:

• a plurality of digitizer units and associated geophones for collecting data relating to seismic activities;
• a base receiver and an associated antenna with a substantial view of the sky, the base receiver acquiring and tracking satellite signals and producing range information;
• a plurality of slave receivers, one at the location of each digitizer unit and one or more of the slave receivers operating in locations in which at various times the signals from the satellites in certain sky locations are unavailable, weakened or corrupted by multipath at the one or more slave receivers, the slave receivers acquiring and tracking satellite signals and producing range information;
• a data recording and control center for
• collecting the range information from the base receiver and the slave receivers over an extended period of time and batch processing the information to calculate the positions of the respective slave receivers and associated digitizer units,
• sending the calculated positions to the slave receivers, and
• collecting and analyzing the data provided by the respective digitizer units to produce seismic measurements;
• and
• the slave receivers using the calculated positions to aid in acquiring and tracking the satellite signals.

A method of making seismic measurements, the method including the steps of:

• A. collecting data relating to seismic activities at a plurality of seismic measurement locations;
• B. acquiring and tracking satellite signals and producing range information at the plurality of seismic locations with one or more of the locations having restricted views of the sky;
• C. acquiring and tracking satellite signals and producing range information from one or more base locations that have substantially clear views of at least respective portions of the sky;
• D. collecting the range information from the locations with restricted views of the sky and the base locations over an extended period of time and batch processing the information to calculate the positions of the respective seismic measurement locations from which the range information was collected;
• E. collecting and analyzing the seismic activity data to produce seismic measurements associated with the respective seismic measurement locations;
• and
• F. storing the calculated positions and the seismic measurements for processing to determine the seismic activity at given locations.

A method for making seismic measurements, the method including The steps of:

• collecting data relating to seismic activities at a plurality locations;
• at one or more locations with substantial views of at least portions of the sky producing tracking assistance information relating to satellites in view and providing the tracking assistance information to the other locations;
• utilizing the tracking assistance information at restricted view locations in which at various times the signals from satellites in certain sky locations are unavailable, weakened or corrupted by multipath to acquire and track signals from the satellites and produce timing signals that are tied to the timing of the codes in the tracked satellite signals to control the timing of data collection by the digitizer units;
• collecting and analyzing the seismic activity data to produce seismic measurement data;
• and
• storing the seismic measurement data for processing to determine seismic activities at the locations.