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Data from: the Self-Calibrating Tilt Accelerometer: a method for observing tilt and correcting drift with a triaxial accelerometer

Data files

Aug 28, 2024 version files 79.27 GB

Abstract

These data were acquired from a novel calibrated tiltmeter design that we name the Self-Calibrating Tilt Accelerometer (SCTA), deployed in a vault at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Cecil and Ida Green Pinon Flats Observatory in southern California (33.611 N, 116.455 W). The SCTA uses a Quartz Seismic Sensors, Inc. triaxial accelerometer with a full scale of ± 3g and a resolution of parts per billion. The accelerometer works by measuring changes in the oscillation frequency of three isolated quartz crystal resonators as they are strained by accelerations in orthogonal directions. The oscillation frequency of a fourth unstrained quartz resonator measures temperature and is used to provide temperature corrections to the frequency outputs of the accelerometers. Such quartz crystal resonators are highly sensitive to changes in load, but are well known to undergo significant instrumental drift. The SCTA is designed to be capable of measuring this drift. Any of the accelerometer's channels in the vertical measure the acceleration due to gravity, g, while any in the horizontal are highly sensitive to changes in tilt. We use this fact to obtain tilt observations in perpendicular horizontal directions and periodically rotate those channels into the vertical to obtain calibrations against g. Any change in the measured value of g through time is attributed to drift of that channel and the tilt time series can be corrected accordingly.