High-density seismic array method has attracted enormous interest in geophysical methods, and it is an advanced seismic observation technology which is of great significance in oil and gas resource detection and underground space exploration. However, designing a portable sensor node that prolongs the lifetime and equips wireless monitoring system to improve construction efficiency has been still a challenge for the high-density seismic array method. In this paper, a portable energy-efficient wireless sensor node and a hybrid communication system that content themselves with complex terrain, large-scale and reliable transmission are proposed to tackle the restrictions of high-density seismic survey. A Wi-Fi communication system based on the star network structure at the core network layer and a ZigBee communication system based on wireless multi-hop structure in the extended network layer form the hybrid communication system. In order to balance the energy of nodes in the extended network and prolong the network lifetime, this paper proposes a multi-hop variable weight routing method (MVWRM). The method selects the cluster-head node and the multi-hop route by changing the weight of the residual energy of the node and the weight of the distance at different periods. Then, a series of simulations and experiments are carried out for verification. The experiments show that the proposed sensor node suggest good performance in equivalent noise level (0.8µV@500Hz, PGA = 1), total harmonic distortion (124dB). Simulation results and performance analysis validate that the effectiveness of the proposed MVWRM can extend about 10% of the node lifetime. INDEX TERMS Energy-efficient, wireless sensor networks, multi-hop, high-density seismic array.