Seth Avram Stein (born July 12, 1953, in Middletown, Connecticut) is an American geophysicist with an international reputation for his research in plate tectonics, seismology, and space geodesy. He has also done important work in public policy for coping with earthquake hazards. [1]
Seth Stein's sister became a lawyer and his brother, Gil, became an archaeologist. Their father was Jerome Leon Stein (1928–2013), a professor of economics at Brown University. [2] [3] After graduating in 1975 with a B.S. in Earth and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), Seth Stein matriculated at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). There he graduated in geophysics with an M.S. in 1977 and an Ph.D. in 1978. [4] He was inspired by Keiiti Aki at M.I.T. and by Hiroo Kanamori at Caltech. Stein's doctoral dissertation, supervised by Kanamori, [5] is entitled I. Seismological study of the Ninetyeast and Chagos-Laccadive Ridges, Indian Ocean. II. Models for asymmetric and oblique spreading at midocean ridges. III. Attenuation studies using split normal modes. [6] At Caltech, the three graduate students, Robert J. "Bob" Geller, Emile A. Okal, and Seth Stein often worked together and were called by other geophysicists "The Gang of Three". [7] [8] As a postdoc from 1978 to 1979 Stein did research in geophysics at Stanford University. At Northwestern University he was an assistant professor from 1979 to 1983, an associate professor from 1983 to 1987, and a full professor from 1987 until his retirement in 2023 as professor emeritus. At Northwestern University, he held from 2006 to 2023 the Deering Professorship of Geological Sciences and chaired from 1989 to 1992 the Department of Geological Sciences. [4] During his academic career at Northwestern, he was the supervisor for 30 doctoral dissertation. [9]
In 1982 in Manhattan he married Carol Ann Geller, [10] whom he first met when he was a graduate student at Caltech. She was one of the first women to receive a degree in geophysics from Caltech. [5] She became a professor of Earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the couple collaborated extensively in research on geophysics. [1] [11] [12] Seth and Carol Stein have also collaborated extensively in public education and outreach. [13] They, with 2 co-workers, developed an interpretive guide for a National Park Service journal [14] and, with Abigail M. Foerstner, produced a YouTube video briefly explaining how the Midcontinent Rift controls the geology of the Lake Superior region. [15] [16]
Seth Stein was a visiting professor in the Netherlands in 1998 and in Germany from 2013 to 2014. He was for the academic year 1993–1994 a visiting senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and from 1998 to 2000 the Scientific Director of the university NAVSTAR Consortium. [4] He was one of the organizers of EarthScope. [17] He served on many national and international scientific committees. In 1986 he was an associate editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research , as well as Geophysical Research Letters . From 1986 to 1989 he was an editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research . [4] He completed a national tour as the 2006 IRIS/SSA (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology/Seismological Society of America) Distinguished Lecturer, speaking on Giant earthquakes: why, where, when, and what we can do. [18] [19] In 2008 he was a design consultant for the Field Museum of Natural History's Nature Unleashed: Inside Natural Disasters exhibit, which became in 2009 a touring exhibit (in the USA and Canada) seen, over a number of years, by more than 1.5 million people. [4] [20] [21] [22] From 2019 to 2021 he was president of the natural hazards section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). [4]
Seth Stein authored a 2010 book Disaster deferred: how new science is changing our view of earthquake hazards in the Midwest for a general audience. He co-authored the 2003 textbook Introduction to seismology, earthquakes, and earth structure (which became widely used in undergraduate college courses in seismology) and the 2014 book Playing against nature: integrating science and economics to mitigate natural hazards in an uncertain world. He also co-edited 6 other books. [4]
The main theme of Stein's research is seismology with phenomena related to earthquakes. [1] He is the author or co-author of more than 200 scientific publications. [4] He and his collaborators did research on tectonic plate motions and how such motions cause earthquakes, as well as how to mitigate societal problems caused by earthquakes. [5] Early in his career at Northwestern University, he and another faculty member led a team of graduate students that developed NUVEL-1, a model providing new insights into plate motions. This model helped to explain the geophysics of the San Andreas Fault and demonstrated that the Indian plate and the Australian plate are distinct. Geophysicists routinely compared the NUVEL model with results from space-based geodesy to identify change in plate motion. The model provided a standard for describing plate motions [1] and established a basis for newer models such as MORVEL. [23] Stein made important contributions to models of plate boundary changes involving microplates, He also did research on thermal evolution of the ocean floor and applications of geophysical data to understanding variations in orogeny of the Andes. [1]
In 1999 Seth Stein with 5 co-authors published in the journal Science a paper indicating that the dangers of a major earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone were significantly overestimated. [24] The research of Seth Stein, Emile Okal, and other geophysics on the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake showed how its devastating, giant tsunami was generated and estimated similar dangers from other subduction zones; [25] [26] [1] they also suggested how GPS data could be used to create a highly effective, real-time system for tsunami warnings and earthquake source determinations. [27] [28] Stein investigated the consequences of post-glacial rebound for earthquakes. [29] He and his collaborators used GPS data to make a comprehensive review of post-glacial rebound in North America and to provide a basis for improved models of mantle viscosity. [1]
In 1989 American Geophysical Union elected Seth Stein a Fellow and also awarded him the James B. Macelwane Medal. The Geological Society of America elected him a Fellow in 1999 and gave him the George P. Woollard Award in 2009. In 2010 he received the European Geosciences Union's Stephan Mueller Medal and was also elected a Foreign Member of Academia Europaea. In 2014 the Royal Astronomical Society awarded him the Price Medal. [4] In 2022 the American Geophysical Union awarded him the Walter H. Bucher Medal. [30]
Seth Stein was a trip leader for the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club. [11] Seth and Carol Stein, the parents of a daughter and a son, [1] endowed a graduate fellowship, administered by the Hertz Foundation, for Earth sciences graduate students and an award, admiinistered by the Geological Society of America, for early career geophysicists. [12] In retirement, he continues to be active in the public education programs of the geophysical community and to work with news media and museums. [4]
Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the generation and propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or other planetary bodies. It also includes studies of earthquake environmental effects such as tsunamis as well as diverse seismic sources such as volcanic, tectonic, glacial, fluvial, oceanic microseism, atmospheric, and artificial processes such as explosions and human activities. A related field that uses geology to infer information regarding past earthquakes is paleoseismology. A recording of Earth motion as a function of time, created by a seismograph is called a seismogram. A seismologist is a scientist works in basic or applied seismology.
Geophysics is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists, who usually study geophysics, physics, or one of the Earth sciences at the graduate level, complete investigations across a wide range of scientific disciplines. The term geophysics classically refers to solid earth applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational, magnetic fields, and electromagnetic fields ; its internal structure and composition; its dynamics and their surface expression in plate tectonics, the generation of magmas, volcanism and rock formation. However, modern geophysics organizations and pure scientists use a broader definition that includes the water cycle including snow and ice; fluid dynamics of the oceans and the atmosphere; electricity and magnetism in the ionosphere and magnetosphere and solar-terrestrial physics; and analogous problems associated with the Moon and other planets.
An intraplate earthquake is an earthquake that occurs in the interior of a tectonic plate, in contrast to an interplate earthquake on the boundary of a tectonic plate. It is also called an intraslab earthquake, especially when occurring in a microplate.
The Okhotsk microplate is a proposed minor tectonic plate covering the Kamchatka Peninsula, Magadan Oblast, and Sakhalin Island of Russia; Hokkaido, Kantō and Tōhoku regions of Japan; the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as the disputed Kuril Islands.
Dan Peter McKenzie is a Professor of Geophysics at the University of Cambridge, and one-time head of the Bullard Laboratories of the Cambridge Department of Earth Sciences. He wrote the first paper defining the mathematical principles of plate tectonics on a sphere, and his early work on mantle convection created the modern discussion of planetary interiors.
Don Lynn Anderson was an American geophysicist who made significant contributions to the understanding of the origin, evolution, structure, and composition of Earth and other planets. An expert in numerous scientific disciplines, Anderson's work combined seismology, solid state physics, geochemistry and petrology to explain how the Earth works. Anderson was best known for his contributions to the understanding of the Earth's deep interior, and more recently, for the plate theory hypothesis that hotspots are the product of plate tectonics rather than narrow plumes emanating from the deep Earth. Anderson was Professor (Emeritus) of Geophysics in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He received numerous awards from geophysical, geological and astronomical societies. In 1998 he was awarded the Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences along with Adam Dziewonski. Later that year, Anderson received the National Medal of Science. He held honorary doctorates from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Paris (Sorbonne), and served on numerous university advisory committees, including those at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, University of Chicago, Stanford, University of Paris, Purdue University, and Rice University. Anderson's wide-ranging research resulted in hundreds of published papers in the fields of planetary science, seismology, mineral physics, petrology, geochemistry, tectonics and the philosophy of science.
The 1938 Banda Sea earthquake occurred on February 2 at 04:04 local time with an estimated magnitude of 8.5-8.6 on the moment magnitude scale. Shaking was intense with an assigned Rossi–Forel intensity of VII and intensity of VI (Strong) on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale. This oblique-slip event generated a destructive tsunami of up to 1.5 metres in the Banda Sea region, but there were no deaths.
Earthquake forecasting is a branch of the science of seismology concerned with the probabilistic assessment of general earthquake seismic hazard, including the frequency and magnitude of damaging earthquakes in a given area over years or decades. While forecasting is usually considered to be a type of prediction, earthquake forecasting is often differentiated from earthquake prediction, Earthquake forecasting estimates the likelihood of earthquakes in a specific timeframe and region, while earthquake prediction attempts to pinpoint the exact time, location, and magnitude of an impending quake, which is currently not reliably achievable.Wood & Gutenberg (1935). Kagan says: "This definition has several defects which contribute to confusion and difficulty in prediction research." In addition to specification of time, location, and magnitude, Allen suggested three other requirements: 4) indication of the author's confidence in the prediction, 5) the chance of an earthquake occurring anyway as a random event, and 6) publication in a form that gives failures the same visibility as successes. Kagan & Knopoff define prediction "to be a formal rule where by the available space-time-seismic moment manifold of earthquake occurrence is significantly contracted ...."</ref> Both forecasting and prediction of earthquakes are distinguished from earthquake warning systems, which, upon detection of an earthquake, provide a real-time warning to regions that might be affected.
Episodic tremor and slip (ETS) is a seismological phenomenon observed in some subduction zones that is characterized by non-earthquake seismic rumbling, or tremor, and slow slip along the plate interface. Slow slip events are distinguished from earthquakes by their propagation speed and focus. In slow slip events, there is an apparent reversal of crustal motion, although the fault motion remains consistent with the direction of subduction. ETS events themselves are imperceptible to human beings and do not cause damage.
The Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system, also sometimes referred to as the Dead Sea Rift, is a series of faults that run for about 1,000 km from the Maras Triple Junction to the northern end of the Red Sea Rift. The fault system forms the transform boundary between the African Plate to the west and the Arabian Plate to the east. It is a zone of left lateral (sinistral) displacement, signifying the relative motions of the two plates. Both plates are moving in a general north-northeast direction, but the Arabian Plate is moving faster, resulting in the observed left lateral motions along the fault of approximately 107 km at its southern end. A component of extension is also present in the southern part of the transform, which has contributed to a series of depressions, or pull-apart basins, forming the Gulf of Aqaba, Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee, and Hula basins. A component of shortening affects the Lebanon restraining bend, leading to uplift on both sides of the Beqaa valley. There is local transtension in the northernmost part of the fault system, forming the Ghab pull-apart basin. The southern part of the fault system runs roughly along the political border of Lebanon and Israel on its western side, and southern Syria and Jordan on the eastern side.
The New Hebrides Plate, sometimes called the Neo-Hebridean Plate, is a minor tectonic plate located in the Pacific Ocean. While most of it is submerged as the sea bottom of the North Fiji Basin, the island country of Vanuatu, with multiple arc volcanoes, is on the western edge of the plate. It is bounded on the south-west by the Australian Plate, which is subducting below it at the New Hebrides Trench. The Vanuatu subduction zone is seismically active, producing many earthquakes of magnitude 7 or higher. To its north is the Pacific Plate, north-east the Balmoral Reef Plate and to its east the Conway Reef Plate.
The historical development of geophysics has been motivated by two factors. One of these is the research curiosity of humankind related to planet Earth and its several components, its events and its problems. The second is economical usage of Earth's resources and Earth-related hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, tides, and floods.
The 1993 southwest-off Hokkaido earthquake or Okushiri earthquake occurred at 13:17:12 UTC on 12 July 1993 in the Sea of Japan near the island of Hokkaido. It had a magnitude of 7.7 on the moment magnitude scale and a maximum felt intensity of VIII (Severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale. It triggered a major tsunami that caused deaths on Hokkaidō and in southeastern Russia, with a total of 230 fatalities recorded. The island of Okushiri was hardest hit, with 165 casualties from the earthquake, the tsunami and a large landslide.
In seismology, a tsunami earthquake is an earthquake which triggers a tsunami of significantly greater magnitude, as measured by shorter-period seismic waves. The term was introduced by Japanese seismologist Hiroo Kanamori in 1972. Such events are a result of relatively slow rupture velocities. They are particularly dangerous as a large tsunami may arrive at a coastline with little or no warning.
The 1983 Sea of Japan earthquake occurred on May 26, 1983 at 11:59:57 local time. It had a magnitude of 7.8 on the moment magnitude scale. It occurred in the Sea of Japan, about 100 km west of the coast of Noshiro in Akita Prefecture, Japan. Out of the 104 fatalities, all but four were killed by the resulting tsunami, which struck communities along the coast, especially Aomori and Akita Prefectures and the east coast of Noto Peninsula. Images of the tsunami hitting the fishing harbor of Wajima on Noto Peninsula were broadcast on TV. The waves exceeded 10 meters (33 ft) in some areas. Three of the fatalities were along the east coast of South Korea. The tsunami also hit Okushiri Island, the site of a more deadly tsunami 10 years later.
Derek Keir has been an associate professor of geophysics at the University of Southampton since 2015. In 2013 he received the Bullerwell Lecture award from the British Geophysical Association (BGA) for significant contributions to geophysics.
The Lwandle Plate is one of three tectonic microplates, along with the Rovuma Plate and Victoria Plate, that make up the African Plate with the Somali Plate and the Nubian Plate. Its discovery is very recent, so the velocity of the plate is neither well known nor well understood. Many experiments are ongoing to quantify this. The Lwandle Plate lies between 30°E and 50°E, sharing a boundary with the Nubian, Somali, and Antarctic Plates.
Jeanne L. Hardebeck is an American research geophysicist studying earthquakes and seismology who has worked at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) since 2004. Hardebeck studies the state of stress and the strength of faults.
Laura Martin Wallace is a geodetic principal scientist who works between the University of Texas at Austin and GNS Science in New Zealand. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2018.
Richard G. Gordon is an American geophysicist, known for his research on global tectonics, including global plate motions and palaeomagnetism. He is noteworthy for leading two global plate motion projects: NUVEL and MORVEL. In the geosciences, NUVEL and MORVEL are standard models for global plate motions.
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