was an early
seismologist at the Central Meteorological Observatory of
Japan (now known as the
Japan Meteorological Agency
The , abbreviated JMA, is an agency of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. It is charged with gathering and providing results for the public in Japan that are obtained from data based on daily scientific observation an ...
), researching deep (
subduction zone) earthquakes. His name is attached to the
Wadati–Benioff zone
A Wadati–Benioff zone (also Benioff–Wadati zone or Benioff zone or Benioff seismic zone) is a planar zone of seismicity corresponding with the down-going slab in a subduction zone. Differential motion along the zone produces numerous earthq ...
. It was Wadati's 1928 paper on shallow and deep earthquakes, comparing maximum below surface displacement against distance from the
epicentre
The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates.
Surface damage
Before the instrumental pe ...
, which led
Charles Richter
Charles Francis Richter (; April 26, 1900 – September 30, 1985) was an American seismologist and physicist.
Richter is most famous as the creator of the Richter magnitude scale, which, until the development of the moment magnitude scale in 19 ...
to develop his
earthquake magnitude scale in 1935.
See also
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List of geophysicists
This is a list of geophysicists, people who made notable contributions to geophysics, whether or not geophysics was their primary field. These include historical figures who laid the foundations for the field of geophysics. More recently, some of ...
References
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External links
Kiyoo Wadati: Biographical information
Japanese geologists
Japanese seismologists
1995 deaths
Laureates of the Imperial Prize
1902 births
20th-century geologists
Tectonicists
Saitama University faculty
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