Ground Geophysical Surveys: Measuring Tools

The paper considers some original strainmeters and gravitoinertial instruments designed at the Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences. The instruments are successfully used for measuring the Earth’s gravitational field, tilts, and deformations of the Earth’s crust in solving a number of applied and fundamental problems in geophysics and geodynamics, in particular, evaluating and monitoring the stability of environmentally hazardous engineering and construction objects (dams, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, oil and gas pipelines, etc.), searching for the zones of weakness in the Earth’s crust, identifying precursors of natural and technological disasters, studying the Earth’s global characteristics (lunar–solar tides, irregularity of the Earth’s rotation, translational oscillations of the Earth’s core, and azimuthal shifts of lithosphere blocks).