Word: dziewonski
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...under thousands of miles of rock, was a mystery. Now all that is changing. In the past two years, thanks to a technological revolution in methods of observation, scientists have begun to paint a theoretical portrait of the planet's interior in startling detail. Says Harvard University Geophysicist Adam Dziewonski: "For the first time we can actually see the inside of the machine...
...science began in 1981, when scientists learned that planet-wide vibrations resulting from earthquakes deep within the earth are split into a complex system of overlapping "tones." The implication: there is something going on in the core that no one had previously suspected. Recalls John Woodhouse, a colleague of Dziewonski's at Harvard: "It was the beginning of a new wave of attention to the core...
Before dealing with the core, though, scientists had to understand the intervening mantle, through which all seismic information has to pass on its way to the surface. Explains Dziewonski: "If it's a faulty lens, you're going to have a wrong image." By 1984 the Harvard group had assembled the first detailed map of the mantle ever published. Their data consisted of the patterns of earthquake-generated pressure waves that passed through the solid earth, moving faster through cooler regions of the mantle and more slowly through warmer areas...
Chairman of the Geology Department Adam M. Dziewonski said that Spence spent a day with the Geology Department listening to their concerns and examining their research. "It's not the kind of things deans used to do," he added...
...attempt to set up a useful forum for the department chairmen to find what problems other departments face," said Dziewonski...