Onengineer, do you mean a seismocone? That gives a Vs (shear waves) profile along the tested vertical.
It can be used for many purposes, mainly seismic site classification according to IUBC or ASCE/SEI. Correlations with other soil properties are also possible, liquefaction anlysis as well, Soil-structure interaction and more.
Main benefit of such tests with respect to surface geophysical investigation is detail, which makes it possibly
useful also for geotechnical purposes.
to propagate the motion (time history) from bedrock to ground, in order to get the response spectrum on the ground and use it for designing.
This can be achieved by obtaining the shear wave value along the depth of soil.
