Under this proposed research, GWR Instruments, Inc. will introduce to the geophysical market a new portable gravimeter with unprecedented sensitivity, stability, and extremely low drift rates resulting in fast reading. The technical approach uses a quartz constraint to shock harden an existing GWR Superconducting Gravity Sensor (SGS). The gravity sensor uses a 3/8` diameter niobium sphere levitated in a magnetic field produced by superconducting coils. The production of a shock hardened gravity sensor will be an important step toward the development of a portable gravity gradiometer in Phase II. A portable superconducting vertical gravity gradiometer will be assembled using two shock hardened GWR SGSs mounted with their sensitive axes co-linear and configured in a differencing signal mode. The success of this research would lead to a portable vertical gravity gradiometer at least one or two orders of magnitude more sensitive than existing technologies.
