Hiroo Kanamori

Hiroo Kanamori is a Japanese seismologist and geophysicist who, together with American seismologist Thomas C. Hanks, developed the moment magnitude scale, published in May 1979, which replaced the older Richter scale as the standard method for measuring the size of large earthquakes because it remains accurate for the very largest events, where the Richter scale becomes unreliable. Working with Masayuki Kikuchi, Kanamori developed a method for calculating how slip is distributed across a fault plane during an earthquake using teleseismic waveform analysis, a technique that contributed to the development of real-time seismology. Kanamori also created a rapid earthquake early-warning detection method based on analyzing the initial P waves of an earthquake, an approach now incorporated into the ShakeAlert early warning system used by the Southern California Seismic Network. In recognition of his contributions to seismology, Kanamori received the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences in 2007, the Japan Academy Prize in 2004 and the William Bowie Medal in 2014.