Australian-owned SME
Independently Australian-owned and locally managed. Engineering, manufacturing and decision-making all happen here, and clients deal directly with the people accountable for their systems.
About ESS Earth Sciences · Richmond, Victoria
Over 50 years monitoring the earth
We design, manufacture, install and support the instrumentation that watches Australia’s dams, rivers, tunnels, mines and skies — and the engineers who design it are the same people who support it in the field.
Who we are
Large enough to deliver a national program. Direct enough to answer the phone.
ESS Earth Sciences is an Australian-owned company that has spent more than five decades designing, manufacturing, installing and supporting the instrumentation that monitors the earth. We are large enough to deliver complex, multi-site programs for national infrastructure owners, and direct enough that the engineers who design our equipment are the same people who support it in the field.
Seismology, geotechnical engineering, hydrology and meteorology are ordinarily separate industries. ESS holds all four under one roof — so a single team can instrument a dam wall, monitor the groundwater beneath it, record the earthquakes around it and measure the weather above it.
Our installed base spans every environmental extreme across Australia, Asia and the Antarctic, and many of our clients have operated our systems for decades. That longevity is the clearest statement of our philosophy: quality and reliability in design, manufacture and support.
- Seismology
- Geotechnics
- Hydrology
- Meteorology
Our people
Every key function is held by qualified professional and technical staff, and the same team handles training, installation, supervision, troubleshooting and the engineering of customised solutions.
ESS by the numbers
- 50Years in operation
- 40Countries served
- 100Client organisations
- ~120Seismic stations
- 700m² Melbourne facility
- ISO9001 certified by BSI
Why clients stay
Capabilities earned over decades
Over 50 years in operation
Five decades of continuous operation across the full lifecycle of the assets we monitor. Dams, tunnels, mines and water networks instrumented decades ago remain on our service schedule today.
A unique blend of disciplines
Seismology, geotechnical engineering, hydrology and meteorology within one organisation. Multi-disciplinary monitoring problems are solved by one supplier rather than three.
Support in more than 40 countries
Systems delivered and supported across Australia, Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas, including offshore and Antarctic deployments.
More than 100 client organisations
Water authorities, power generators, mining houses, transport agencies, national meteorological services, defence and research institutions — many of them clients for twenty years or more.
Design and manufacturing in Melbourne
More than 700 square metres of factory, system-configuration and calibration space at our Richmond head office, including calibration for pressure, temperature and water-quality instrumentation.
Field services for installation
A permanent team of installation and commissioning technicians, maintenance and software engineers, trainers and field seismologists who deploy throughout Australia and internationally.
Certified for quality assurance
Certified by BSI in accordance with ISO 9001 — documented, audited and applied equally to design, manufacture, installation and ongoing support.
Our business divisions
Four divisions, one team
Our focus is to bring together the best products and services to support companies and government agencies dedicated to monitoring the earth.
Division 01 · In the structureGeosystemsGeosystemsGeosystemsPore pressure, settlement, displacement, joint movement and load — instrumented, installed and commissioned by our own crews.Manufacturing since 1984Install & commissionRock stressExplore Geosystems
Division 02 · Beneath and downstreamGreenspanGreenspanGreenspanLevel, flow, salinity, turbidity and groundwater condition, to water-authority standard, built to sit in the river for years.Level · salinity · turbidityWater-authority standardTide gauge networksExplore Greenspan
Division 03 · Around the siteSeismology Research CentreSRCSeismology Research Centre~100 seismographs and accelerographs across eastern Australia, locating hundreds of earthquakes a year and alarming within minutes.Earthquake alarm serviceHazard consultingKelunji Gecko seismographsExplore the SRC
Division 04 · Above the siteWeathertechWeathertechWeathertechAutomatic weather stations, atmospheric profiling and solar radiation monitoring — the weather over the asset.Automatic weather stationsAtmospheric profilingSolar radiationExplore WeathertechESS at a glance
The scale, reach and credentials behind every project
ESS is the largest Australian-owned group specialising in products and services for the meteorological, oceanographic, seismic, environmental and geotechnical fields.
ISO 9001Certified by BSI · independently audited
Company recordACN 006 058 395
- Ownership
- Australian-owned and operated
- Experience
- Over 50 years of continuous operation
- Head office
- 141 Palmer Street, Richmond, Victoria 3121
- Offices
- Melbourne, Australia
- International reach
- Sales and support in more than 40 countries
- Clients
- More than 100 client organisations
- Disciplines
- Seismology, geotechnics, hydrology, meteorology
- Manufacturing
- 700+ m² Melbourne facility with calibration laboratory
- Seismic network
- Hundreds of stations in deployed in Australia and internationally
- Certification
- ISO 9001:2015, certified by BSI
Facilities & field services
Designed, built and calibrated in Richmond. Installed wherever the asset is.
Richmond, VIC — head officeGet directions
Facilities
Design, manufacture and calibration of instrumentation all take place at our Melbourne facility. The site provides more than 700 square metres of factory and manufacturing space for large project system configuration, together with a calibration facility equipped for pressure, temperature and water-quality instrumentation.
Our inner-city location keeps us close to component suppliers, transport depots, airports and hotels — short lead times for clients, simple travel for visiting project teams.
Field services
Our field team is trained to install, maintain and service every hardware and software system we supply — in Australia and around the world.
- Installation & commissioningTechnicians and engineers who drill, mount, wire and prove the system on site.
- Maintenance & software engineersKeeping loggers, telemetry and analysis software running long after handover.
- Customer support officersOne desk, staffed by people who know the instruments in the field.
- TrainersInstrument and software operation, taught to the crews who will use it.
- Field seismologistsMaintaining ~100 stations in Australia and more than 20 internationally.
Quality assurance
Our ISO 9001 quality management system is documented, audited and applied equally to design, manufacture, calibration, installation and ongoing support, and is independently audited by BSI.
History
How the group came together
ESS grew by bringing established Australian instrument makers under one roof — and kept every one of their service commitments.
- 1976
The SRC is founded
The Seismology Research Centre (SRC) is founded in Melbourne at what would become RMIT University.
- 1982
ES&S is established
ES&S is established to supply weather monitoring systems in Australia.
- 1991
Greenspan Technology
Greenspan Technology starts developing water quality sensors in Queensland, Australia.
- 1998
Mindata acquires the SRC
Mindata Australia acquires the SRC to augment their geotechnical and water quality instrument business.
- 2002
ES&S acquires Mindata
ES&S acquires Mindata and establishes the four divisional units that persist today: Seismology, Geotech, Hydrology and Weather.
- 2007
Geosystems Australia
ES&S acquires Geosystems Australia to augment the range of instruments offered to the mining and civil sectors.
- 2013
ESS Earth Sciences
ES&S is reformed into ESS Earth Sciences, retaining all but the Weathertech division, which is sold to a US-based sister company.
- 2019
Greenspan joins ESS
ESS acquires Greenspan to augment our capabilities in the water quality monitoring industry.
- 2022
Weathertech returns
The Weathertech division is reintegrated into ESS, focussing on fire weather, solar radiation and other atmospheric systems.
Products and services
What our divisions currently provide
Seismology
- Seismic event data acquisition
- Earthquake preparation, alarm and response services
- Dynamic properties of structures, including dams and buildings
- Micro-seismic systems and services
- Blast and vibration monitoring equipment
- Ocean Bottom Seismograph deployment and retrieval
Geotechnical engineering
- Rock stress and deformation monitoring equipment and services
- Hydraulic fracture testing equipment and services
- Underground and surface mining monitoring networks
- Geological stress consultancy services
- Geotechnical instrumentation
- Laboratory equipment
Hydrology
- Stream flow, rainfall and water quality monitoring
- Flood and pollution critical warning systems
- Groundwater resource management
- Water resources infrastructure projects
- Tide gauges and high-accuracy acoustic and radar level sensors
Meteorology
- Automatic weather station supply and installation
- Atmospheric profiling sensors and LIDAR
- Solar radiation and atmospheric monitoring
- Portable and permanent bushfire weather monitoring stations
141 Palmer Street, Richmond VIC · T +61 3 8420 8999
Tell us what you need to measure
Whether that is a single sensor, a national network or a multi-year service agreement — an ESS engineer will specify the instruments and quote them.