Hiroo Kanamori

is a Japanese seismologist who has made fundamental contributions to understanding the physics of earthquakes and the tectonic processes that cause them.

Career Kanamori and American seismologist Thomas C. Hanks developed the moment magnitude scale which replaced the Richter scale as a measurement of the relative strength of earthquakes.

Kanamori invented the method for calculating slip distribution on the fault plane by teleseismic waveform with Masayuki Kikuchi. In addition, they studied realtime seismology.

In 2007 he was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences.

Kanamori developed a new method of earthquake early warning detection by rapid analysis of the P wave by a robust network. The algorithm is currently being tested with the Southern California Seismic Network "ShakeAlert" Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system, and is one of three algorithms that is used by the system.

Honours 1993 Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship 1994 Asahi Prize 1996 Walter H. Bucher Medal 2004 Japan Academy Prize 2006 Person of Cultural Merit 2007 Kyoto Prize 2014 William Bowie Medal

Selected publications