Just in case folks are wondering why funding for seismometer networks has fallen off a cliff, it's not what you might think. It's due to the end of the cold war.
From the 50's to the 80's there was a significant amount of defense funding (mostly DARPA) for seismic monitoring to detect, locate, and analyze nuclear detonations in addition to civilian research purposes. After the cold war ended, the majority of the military funding went away.
Also, on a side note, for those of you looking at the hardware description and thinking "all that exists", notice the sample rate and power requirements. (Don't forget data transmission and/or storage, either.) It's already possible to get dirt cheap sensors. (For some purposes (e.g. surface waves), off-the-shelf accelerometers are good enough, and even traditional oil industry geophones are fairly cheap.) (Obviously broadband stations are a completely different story...) The problem is sample rate and power draw.
From the 50's to the 80's there was a significant amount of defense funding (mostly DARPA) for seismic monitoring to detect, locate, and analyze nuclear detonations in addition to civilian research purposes. After the cold war ended, the majority of the military funding went away.
Also, on a side note, for those of you looking at the hardware description and thinking "all that exists", notice the sample rate and power requirements. (Don't forget data transmission and/or storage, either.) It's already possible to get dirt cheap sensors. (For some purposes (e.g. surface waves), off-the-shelf accelerometers are good enough, and even traditional oil industry geophones are fairly cheap.) (Obviously broadband stations are a completely different story...) The problem is sample rate and power draw.