New Zealand’s Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tu Ake says an off-the-shelf seismometer “could revolutionise earthquake monitoring”.  

Researchers from Victoria University of Wellington and Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research tested publicly available Raspberry Shake seismometers, using 22 of them across Wellington and comparing them with 20 of GNS Science’s GeoNet seismometers.

They found the low-cost devices to be a reliable source of monitoring for quakes.  

“We purposely didn’t help people set-up the shakes because we wanted to simulate real-world situations where people don’t have guidance from experts,” supervising researcher Finn Illsley-Kemp said. “The amplitudes measured by the shakes were comparable to the GeoNet network, and we were surprised to see the shakes picking up low-magnitude earthquakes that were even outside the range of GeoNet seismometers due to the increased sensor density in the study.”  

The shakes picked up 19 quakes over a week.  

Dr Illsley-Kemp says he was surprised at the devices’ accuracy but notes they were best used in conjunction with the high-quality seismometer network.  

“The citizen science data collected through Raspberry Shakes has often been dismissed as a hobby of people interested in earthquakes, and very rarely has it been used for scientific research because it’s been assumed that the data isn’t good enough,” he said.  

“But we show that, when paired with GNS Science’s GeoNet seismometer network, the data is high-quality and reliable and can help us accurately monitor earthquakes.”

There are about 50 Raspberry Shakes in use across New Zealand, but given their relatively low cost – about $NZ1000 ($913.99) – they could help overcome the cost barrier to developing a reliable early detection system.  

Dr Illsley-Kemp says a “dense distribution of Raspberry Shakes could act as an early warning system, picking up signals seconds before they reach the GeoNet network.

“If more people installed these devices in their homes, alongside the professional networks, we would have a really amazing seismometer network that would be able to locate earthquakes in and around Wellington in great detail.”

Natural Hazards Commission research head Natalie Balfour says the results “are promising because they show that it’s possible to supplement our high-quality GeoNet network with low-cost, readily available devices, to better understand earthquake hazard.”