Who is brian atwater

Brian Atwater is reluctant to take the credit that has been bestowed on him for his discovery. He credits many other scientists for the work that they have done; however, he has become the face of this discovery. He argued that a large earthquake, and subsequent tsunami could cause large scale devastation to a nuclear reaction.

This was later proven following the earthquake in Japan. Accessed: September Accessed: August The detective story does not end there. The most logical candidate for the orphan's "parent," they suggested, was the earthquake that, according to evidence collected by Atwater and others, had struck the Pacific Northwest at just about the same time.

Since then, scientists have nailed down the evidence, if anyone needs it anymore, that waves triggered by an upheaval on one side of an ocean can wreak enormous damage on the other.

From the Archive An American Tsunami: There's no cause for panic, but the next big wave could be triggered by a fault in the Pacific Northwest. Ghost forest at Copalis Crossing, Oregon, a remnant of the Cascadia earthquake, photograph graysharbortalk. Seismologists had long known about the Cascadia subduction zone, where a tiny tectonic plate, the Juan de Fuca plate, pushes eastward under the much more massive North American plate first image. Motion of this plate had caused the eruption of Mt.

Helens in , and indeed had raised most of the volcanic peaks of the Cascades. But no one knew about the massive earthquake until , and the area has since been intensively studied. It now appears that large earthquakes along the Cascadia zone occur about every years. And it has been years since the last one. In both the scientific press and in popular media, he continues to passionately advocate for earthquake and tsunami public awareness and preparedness. His efforts in public outreach and communication led to his recognition by Time magazine in as one of America's " Most Influential People.

Unlike more lab-centric sciences such as chemistry and molecular biology, or mathematical physics done on blackboards and computers screens, geology often requires getting out in the field, digging in the dirt, wading through mud, canoeing down remote streams, and traipsing through scratchy brush in insect-infested wilderness.

Far from shying away from those realities, Atwater revels in them, one reason for his prominence as a field researcher who braves the elements for scientific gold. As a long-time affiliated professor at the University of Washington, he has trained and mentored a new generation of geologists and seismologists in the art and necessity of doing good science while getting one's hands and everything else dirty.

But as many of his colleagues have noted, even beyond his purely scientific contributions, perhaps Brian Atwater's greatest award will be a legacy of saving lives by promoting greater awareness and vigilance against the threat of earthquakes and tsunamis in the United States and around the world. Join Our Email List. Learn more about our commitment to safety. The Franklin Institute is a C 3 nonprofit registered in the U.

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