Shamita Das is an emeritus professor at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

and an emeritus fellow at Exeter College. She is known for her research on earthquakes, in particular the speed that earthquakes can propagate through the earth.

Education and career

Das has a G.C.E. from Cambridge (1962), a B.Sc. (1965) and an M.Sc. (1967) in mathematics from the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

, India, an M.S. in geophysics from

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

(1972), and an Sc.D.in geophysics from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(1976). Das held postdoctoral positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a research scientist at Gulf Oil, and a fellow at Columbia at University. In 1983 she became a senior research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, a position she held until 1990. Starting in 1990 she held positions at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

, where she transitioned to emeritus professor in 2013. As of 2001, she also holds a position at Exeter College, in Oxford.

Research

Das's research is on earthquake source mechanics. Her graduate research centered on the propagation of cracks and she developed a numerical model of earthquakes that enabled the prediction of aftershocks after an earthquake. While at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Das worked on the relevance of the source point for an earthquake with respect to the scale of an earthquake. Das's research on the speed that earthquakes can break apart has implications for predicting the degree of damage from an earthquake. This research compared the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Time Zone, Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli inte ...

and the

2001 Kunlun earthquake 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

and showed that earthquake faults that are straight, e.g., the

San Andreas fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental Fault (geology)#Strike-slip faults, right-lateral strike-slip transform fault that extends roughly through the U.S. state of California. It forms part of the tectonics, tectonic boundary between the Paci ...

, enable the earthquake to move rapidly through the rock. Das developed a method to invert seismograms that was applied to the 1986 earthquake in the

Andreanof Islands The Andreanof Islands (, ) are a group of islands in the Aleutian Islands in southwestern Alaska, United States. They are located at about 52° North and 172°57' to 179°09' West. Geography The Andreanof Islands are located between Amchitka Pas ...

and revealed the long-term motion of the Aleutian arc. Das is also known for her work on the 1989 Macquarie Ridge earthquake on the

Macquarie Fault Zone The long Macquarie fault zone (also known as the Macquarie Ridge, its gazetted name since 2015, the Macquarie Ridge complex or historically as the Macquarie Fault) is a major right lateral-moving transform fault along the seafloor of the south ...

. With Andrea Bizzarri, Das worked on how shear fractions move between zones defined by Rayleigh wave speeds and shear wave speeds. In 2015, Das reviewed the research on measuring the speed of earthquake propagation since her 1977 paper, including a consideration of the theoretical modeling, methods for analyzing seismic waveforms, field examples in which these methods have been applied, laboratory experiments, and examples of faults where high speeds of sheer will be possible.

Selected publications

* * *

Awards and honors

* Fellow,

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, Atmospheric science, atmospheric, Oceanography, ocean, Hydrology, hydrologic, Astronomy, space, and Planetary science, planetary scientists and enthusiasts that ...

(2015) * Inge Lehmann Award, European Seismological Commission (2014)

Reference section

{{DEFAULTSORT:Das, Shamita Fellows of the American Geophysical Union Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni University of Calcutta alumni Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences alumni British seismologists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory people Indian seismologists