GUTENBERG, BENO

born June 4, 1889, Darmstadt, Ger. died Jan. 25, 1960, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S. American seismologist noted for his analyses of earthquake waves and the information they furnish about the physical properties of the Earth's interior. Gutenberg served as a professor of geophysics and director of the seismological laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, from 1930 to 1957, when he retired. He worked with Charles Richter to develop a method of determining the intensity of earthquakes. Calculating the energy released by present-day shallow earthquakes, they showed that three-quarters of that energy occurs in the Circum-Pacific belt. Gutenberg wrote several books, including Earthquakes in North America (1951); he edited Internal Constitution of the Earth (1939) and, with Richter, wrote The Seismicity of the Earth (1941).