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Robert Hooke
First to realize earthquakes are connected through movement -
Modern Studies Began
A huge earthquake and tsunami in Portugal killed over 70,000 people. This marked the start of modern earthquake studies, as people began to collect data to help understand the events. -
Electromagnetic seismograph invented
Luigi Palmieri invented the first accurate electromagnetic seismograph, which could detect earthquakes not felt by humans. -
John Milne
John Milne suggests a machine that could measure seismic activity -
Layer of rocks discovery
John Pratt and George Airy suggested that surface rocks float on a layer of denser rock. -
Seismic waves discovered
Robert Mallet realized that most earthquake damage is due to moving waves caused by a sudden land movement, named seismic waves. -
Fault lines proposition
Grove Gilbert Discovered that earthquakes usually occur around fault lines -
Seismometer detection
For the first time, a seismometer (in Germany) detected an earthquake on the other side of the Earth (in Japan). -
P-waves and S-waves
Richard Oldham realized that there were at least two types of seismic waves that travelled at different speeds. We know these now as P-waves and S-waves. -
Seismograph
First U.S. Seismograph installed at Lick University -
Atomic reactions
Ernest Rutherford claimed that the Earth is heated by atomic reactions. -
New thinking about fault lines
After the most destructive earthquake in American history at San Francisco, Harry Reid suggested that earthquakes are the result of stresses built up along faults. -
Intensity Scale
Giuseppe Mercalli creates the Intensity Scale that measures the damage that my be caused in an earthquake -
Harry Reid
Hypothesized that earthquakes were likely the result of buildup pressure along fault lines. -
Probing inside the Earth
Andrija Mohorovicic realized that you could use seismic waves to probe the hidden Earth. -
Continental drift
Alfred Wegener put forward the idea of continental drift. His theory was that the continents were once joined to form a giant supercontinent that he called Pangaea. -
Richter Scale
Charles Richter creates the Richter scale to measure the intensity of earthquakes -
P-waves measure inner core
Inge Lehmann used data from P-waves to suggest the existence of an inner core to the Earth. -
Monitoring earthquakes worldwide
A worldwide earthquake monitoring system was set up. Several systems now exist, including the Global Seismographic Network. They contribute to the understanding of plate tectonics and other Earth processes. -
Plate tectonics
The realization that ocean floors behave differently to continents led to the theory of plate tectonics. -
Inner core movement
Xuedong Song and Paul Richards, using P-waves, discovered that the solid inner core rotates freely within the fluid outer core and at a different speed to the rest of the Earth. -
New Zealand’s slow slip
First slow slip events recorded in New Zealand. -
Rethinking hazards in plate boundary zones
Kaikoura's 7.9 earthquake was so complex and unusual that it is likely to change conventional seismic hazard models.
