Aki, Keiiti

▪ 2006

      Japanese seismologist (b. March 30, 1930, Yokohama, Japan—d. May 17, 2005, Réunion), developed the concept of the “seismic moment”—a quantitative means of measuring the amount of energy released by an earthquake. The seismic moment, first introduced by Aki in 1966, takes into consideration such factors as the length and depth of the rupture along the fault where an earthquake occurs, the strength of the displaced rocks, and the distance the rocks slip. Scientists considered Aki's seismic moment method to give a more reliable measurement of earthquake force than the Richter scale. Aki was educated at the University of Tokyo, where he earned B.S. (1952) and Ph.D. (1958) degrees. He was a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology before returning to Japan to teach at the Earthquake Research Institute in Tokyo. From 1966 to 1984 he was a professor of geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1979 Aki was elected president of the Seismological Society of America. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among Aki's numerous awards and honours were the American Geophysical Union's Bowie Medal in 2004 and the European Geosciences Union's Gutenberg Medal in 2005. At the time of his death, Aki had been conducting research on the island of Réunion, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean.

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