Hiroo Kanamori (金森 博雄 Kanamori Hiroo; October 17, 1936—) is a Japanese-born seismologist who has made fundamental contributions to understanding the physics of earthquakes and the tectonic processes that cause them.
He was born in Tokyo and attended the University of Tokyo where he earned his Ph.D. in 1964. He has been on the faculty at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the majority of his career, and was the Director of the Seismological Laboratory there at one time. He has worked with Dr. Charles Richter, the father of seismology, and Kanamori's tenure at Caltech has provided for many widely accepted theories in modern seismology. Kanamori is regarded as one of the scientists who has helped shape modern seismology. His work has influenced several other seismologists and geophysicists, and has provided the platform for most of the modern theories in seismology and geophysics today.
Kanamori and American seismologist Tom Hanks suggested the moment magnitude scale which replaced the Richter magnitude scale as a measurement of the relative strength of earthquakes[1][2].
Kanamori invented the method for calculating slip distribution on the fault plane by teleseismic waveform with Masayuki Kikuchi. In addition, they studied realtime seismology[3].
Dr. Kanamori has recently been working at Caltech on an earthquake early-warning system for Southern California, and helped develop the algorithm used to determine the size of the earthquake at a distance before the strong shaking reaches Los Angeles. A system is currently being tested, and will likely be available in the coming years.[4][5]
http://seismo.berkeley.edu/~rallen/pub/2004elarms/AllenSeismicRisk2004.pdf</ref>
   | Kanamori's biography and citation for the AGU Bucher Medal - Kanamori Receives the Bucher Medal |
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