There have been several up-grade to the seismographs installed into the Observatory. The original was in 1909 a set of Wiechert seismographs were installed. Fr Pigot has obtained the drawings from Prince Galitzin in Russia prior to the latter's death in 1916. This made Riverview apart from Apia in Western Samoa, the first fully equiped seismological observatory in the southern hemisphere. In 1962 at the invitation of the U.S. Government, Riverview became one of the World-Wide Network of Standard Seismograph Stations. Three short-period Benioff seismographs and three long-period Sprengnether seismographs were installed.

Riverview has been ranked among the world's foremost observatories. Continuous recording have been recorded since 1909, except for a few days in 1914 when the staff were sick and for a few days in 1975 after the seismograph basement flooded..

An annual Seismological Bulletin giving detailed analysis of the year's earthquakes were published from 1909 to 1968. It was sent to some 200 observatories and scientific institutions throughout the world, inclusing many in countries behind the iron and bamboo curtains. The Soviet Academy of Sciences, the Lenin State Library in Moscow, the Chinese Academy, the Library of Congress in Washington and the New York Public Library are some of the institutions which specially requested the Riverview Seismological Buletin. As well as the annual bulletin, date from the preliminary determination of earthquake epicentres, origin times and focal depths were cabled to Boulder, Colorado, through the U.S. Embassy in Canberra. More detailed data was sent each few months to the International Seismological Cengtre in Newbury, Berkshire, for final determination of earthquake epicentres, origin times and focal depths. The reason for stopping this publication was that most of our seismogram readings were being published by the International Seismological Centre in England and by the U.S. Geological Survey.

 Today the readings can be accessed through the Geoscience Australia website.

http://www.ga.gov.au/urban/waveform.jsp

Fr. O'Leary produced a seismograph whose horizontal pendulum weighed 11/2 tons for use in conjunction with the Milne-Shaw. It was then that he realised the necessity of a really accurate clock. He is one of the few inventors of a real free pendulum clock was the construction of his first and most effective model consisted mainly of a cheap American alarm clock. The O'Leary Clock is continuing to work at the Observatory.

In 2004 the Indian Ocean tsunami was recorded on our paper machines that are now almost obsolete.