accelerograph

thumb | right | Sketch of an accelerograph by Marcel DeprezAn accelerograph can be referred to as a strong-motion instrument or seismograph, or simply an earthquake accelerometer. They are usually constructed as a self-contained box, which previously included a paper or film recorder (an analogue instrument) but now they often record directly on digital media and then the data is transmitted via the Internet.

Accelerographs are useful for when the earthquake ground motion is so strong that it causes the more sensitive seismometers to go off-scale. There is an entire science of strong ground motion, that is dedicated to studying the shaking in the vicinity of earthquakes (roughly within about 100 km of the fault rupture).