Beno Gutenberg (June 4, 1889 – January 25, 1960) was a German-born seismologist who made several important contributions to the science. He was a colleague of Charles Francis Richter at the California Institute of Technology and Richter's collaborator in developing the Richter scale of earthquake magnitude.

Gutenberg was born in Darmstadt, Germany and obtained his Ph.D. from University of Göttingen in 1911. He then held positions at German University of Strasbourg and University of Frankfurt-am-Main until he joined Caltech in 1929.

Collaborating with Richter, developed a relationship between seismic magnitude and energy, represented in the equation logE(S) = 11.8 + 1.5M. This gives the energy E(s) given from earthquakes from seismic waves in ergs. Another famous result known as Gutenberg-Richter law provides probability distribution of earthquakes for given energy.

He also worked on determining the depth of the core-mantle boundary as well as other properties of the interior of the earth.

External links

• Biography at the American Geophysical Union website
• National Academy of Science

1889 births | 1960 deaths | Geophysicists | Seismologists | American geophysicists

Beno Gutenberg | Beno Gutenberg | Beno Gutenberg | Beno Gutenberg | เบโน กูเทนเบิร์ก proposed earth's core was liquid