The Fairfields are self-contained three-component geophones, which can be considered as single “nodes”. Both recording and acquisition are incorporated in such node; no need of external cables, only an internal battery, a flash memory to store the data, and built-in GPS.

Such kinds of instruments are making (slowly) the move to a new type of seismic acquisition in the oil and gas seismic exploration, in comparison to classical cabled acquisition. Monitoring with nodal systems has proven to be more efficient, safer, and with an overall less environmental impact. This was described in Caffagni and Bokelmann (2017), in a report for the project FracRisk (www.fracrisk.eu), together with other technological enhancements of seismic techniques.

The University of Vienna has acquired 100 Fairfield instruments (5Hz eigenfrequency), as well as charger rakers, and hardware that goes with it. The Fairfields will help us deepen knowledge especially in shallow subsurface structure, body and surface waves propagation, particularly beneath the Alps, ambient noise tomography, seismo-acoustic signals generated by earthquakes and explosions, and the potential for geothermal exploration in the Vienna basin.

The pictures show members of the IMGW team deploying the sensors on the ground, as a first recording test, adjacent to the meteorological instrumentation, in a 10x10 monitoring geometry.