James Freeman Gilbert (August 9, 1931 – August 15, 2014) was an American geophysicist, best known for his work with George E. Backus on inverting geophysical data, and also for his role in establishing an international network of long-period seismometers. Gilbert was born in

Vincennes, Indiana Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the lower Wabash River in the southwestern part of the state, nearly halfway between Evansville and Terre Haute. Founded in 1732 by French fur ...

. A 1949 graduate of Lawrenceburg High School (Kentucky), his undergraduate and graduate degrees were earned from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

(B.S., 1953, and Ph.D. in geophysics, 1956), and he continued at MIT as a postdoctoral fellow until 1957, when he moved to the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

. At UCLA he was an assistant, then associate, professor, but left to take an appointment as a senior researcher at

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

. In 1961, he was recruited by

Walter Munk Walter Heinrich Munk (October 19, 1917 – February 8, 2019) was an American physical oceanography, physical oceanographer. He was one of the first scientists to bring statistical methods to the analysis of oceanographic data. His work won award ...

to the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) at the

Scripps Institution of Oceanography The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and Earth science research, public servi ...

, also becoming a professor of geophysics at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is ...

. He remained at UCSD through the remainder of his career, and became an emeritus professor. In his later years, Gilbert enjoyed extensive world travel with his wife, Sally Gilbert. He died due to complications resulting from a car accident in Southern Oregon on August 15, 2014. He was 83 years old.

Contributions

Gilbert was among the first to recognize that the free oscillations of the Earth (so-called bell-ringing modes) could be measured immediately following large earthquakes, and could be used to produce structural models of the inner earth. In collaboration with Adam Dziewonski, he applied these ideas first to seismic records from the

1964 Alaska earthquake The 1964 Alaskan earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan earthquake and Good Friday earthquake, occurred at 5:36 PM AKST on Good Friday, March 27.

and then to records from the 1970 Colombia earthquake. In this context he and Backus developed robust methods for inverting seismic data. By the early 1970s it was clear that better data from long-period seismometers was needed for this kind of work. Gilbert convinced geophysicist/philanthropist

Cecil Green Cecil Green (né Judge Cecil Holt; September 30, 1919 – July 29, 1951) was an American racecar driver from Dallas, Texas. Racing career Green won 34 midget races between 1948 and 1950 in Oklahoma and Missouri, and several more in Texas. He won ...

to fund a network of seismometers designed to provide data for global studies of the Earth. The first of 40 stations of this International Deployment of Accelerometers (IDA) array (the acronym also commemorating co-philanthropist Ida Green) was installed in 1974, and it continues in operation to this day.

Awards

Gilbert had received many honors, including the

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awar ...

in 1981; the

William Bowie Medal The William Bowie Medal is awarded annually by the American Geophysical Union for "outstanding contributions to fundamental geophysics and for unselfish cooperation in research". The award is the highest honor given by the AGU and is named in honor ...

of American Geophysical Union in 1999; and the Harry Fielding Reid Medal of the

Seismological Society of America The Seismological Society of America (SSA) is an international scientific society devoted to the advancement of seismology and the understanding of earthquakes for the benefit of society. Founded in 1906, the society has members throughout the wo ...

in 2004. In 1990, Freeman was awarded th
Balzan Prize
for Geophysics (solid earth) for his outstanding contribution to our knowledge of the Earth’s deep interior.

References

External links

J. Freeman Gilbert Biography

Project IDA (International Deployment of Accelerometers)

1981 The Gold Medal (A) The Society's highest honour

1990 Balzan Prize Winner

J. Freeman Gilbert Receives 1999 William Bowie Medal

2004 The Harry Fielding Reid Medal of the Seismological Society of America

Obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilbert, James Freeman 1931 births 2014 deaths People from Vincennes, Indiana American geophysicists Linear algebraists Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni University of California, San Diego faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Road incident deaths in Oregon

Contributions

Awards

See also

References

External links