Peter Langdon Ward
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Peter Langdon Ward | |
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| Born | August 10, 1943 Washington D.C., United States |
| Alma mater | Dartmouth College, Columbia University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Earthquakes, volcanism, regional plate tectonics |
| Institutions | U.S. Geological Survey |
Peter Langdon Ward is a geophysicist specializing in seismology and volcanology.
Ward is an American earth scientist and geophysicist who has studied microearthquakes associated with active fault systems and volcanic eruptions throughout the western United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Iceland, Central America, and the East African Rift System. He developed a prototype global volcano surveillance system[1] that relayed data through the ERTS satellite. He was born August 10, 1943, in Washington, D.C., and was educated at the Noble and Greenough School (1955–1961), Dartmouth College (BA 1965), and Columbia University (MA, 1967, PhD 1970).
In January, 1975, he was appointed chief of the Branch of Seismology, a group of 140 scientists and staff at the United States Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, playing a lead role in the development of, and initial management of, the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. This Branch became the Branch of Earthquake Mechanics and Prediction, conducting scientific research aimed at predicting the time of occurrence of damaging earthquakes at a time when such research appeared promising worldwide.
Ward contributed to an understanding of how geologic records of volcanism in western North America relate in detail to motions of tectonic plates under the eastern Pacific Ocean.[2][3]
