James Freeman Gilbert (August 9, 1931 – August 15, 2014) was an American geophysicist, best known for his work with
George E. Backus on inverting geophysical data, and also for his role in establishing an international network of long-period seismometers.
Gilbert was born in
Vincennes, Indiana
Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the lower Wabash River in the Southwestern Indiana, southwestern part of the state, nearly halfway between Evansville, Indi ...
. A 1949 graduate of Lawrenceburg High School (Kentucky),
his undergraduate and graduate degrees were earned from
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
(B.S., 1953, and Ph.D. in geophysics, 1956), and he continued at MIT as a postdoctoral fellow until 1957, when he moved to the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
. At UCLA he was an assistant, then associate, professor, but left to take an appointment as
a senior researcher at
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...
. In 1961, he was recruited by
Walter Munk
Walter Heinrich Munk (October 19, 1917 – February 8, 2019) was an American physical oceanographer. He was one of the first scientists to bring statistical methods to the analysis of oceanographic data. His work won awards including the Nation ...
to the Institute of Geophysics and
Planetary Physics (IGPP) at the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for oceanography, ocean and Earth science research ...
, also becoming a professor of geophysics at the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
. He remained at UCSD through the remainder of his career, and became an emeritus professor.
In his later years, Gilbert enjoyed extensive world travel with his wife, Sally Gilbert. He died due to complications resulting from a car accident in Southern Oregon on August 15, 2014. He was 83 years old.
Contributions
Gilbert was among the first to recognize that the free oscillations of the Earth (so-called bell-ringing modes) could be measured immediately following large earthquakes, and could be used to produce structural models of the inner earth. In collaboration with
Adam Dziewonski
Adam Marian Dziewoński (November 15, 1936 – March 1, 2016) was a Polish-American geophysicist who made seminal contributions to the determination of the large-scale structure of the Earth's interior and the nature of earthquakes using seismolo ...
, he applied these ideas first to seismic records from the
1964 Alaska earthquake
The 1964 Alaskan earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan earthquake and Good Friday earthquake, occurred at 5:36 PM AKST on Good Friday, March 27. and then to records from the 1970 Colombia earthquake.
In this context he and Backus developed robust methods for inverting seismic data.
By the early 1970s it was clear that better data from long-period seismometers was needed for this kind of work.
Gilbert convinced geophysicist/philanthropist
Cecil Green
Cecil Green (né Judge Cecil Holt; September 30, 1919 – July 29, 1951) was an American racecar driver from Dallas, Texas.
Racing career
Green won 34 midget races between 1948 and 1950 in Oklahoma and Missouri, and several more in Texas. He won ...
to fund a network of seismometers designed to provide data for global studies of the Earth. The first of 40 stations of this International Deployment of Accelerometers (IDA) array (the acronym also commemorating co-philanthropist Ida Green) was installed in 1974, and it continues in operation to this day.
Awards
Gilbert had received many honors, including the
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awar ...
in 1981;
the
William Bowie Medal
The William Bowie Medal is awarded annually by the American Geophysical Union for "outstanding contributions to fundamental geophysics and for unselfish cooperation in research". The award is the highest honor given by the AGU and is named in honor ...
of American Geophysical Union in 1999;
and the Harry Fielding Reid Medal of the
Seismological Society of America
The Seismological Society of America (SSA) is an international scientific society devoted to the advancement of seismology and the understanding of earthquakes for the benefit of society. Founded in 1906, the society has members throughout the wor ...
in 2004.
In 1990, Freeman was awarded th
Balzan Prizefor Geophysics (solid earth) for his outstanding contribution to our knowledge of the Earth’s deep interior.
See also
*
Backus–Gilbert method
*
List of geophysicists
This is a list of geophysicists, people who made notable contributions to geophysics, whether or not geophysics was their primary field. These include historical figures who laid the foundations for the field of geophysics. More recently, some of ...
References
External links
J. Freeman Gilbert BiographyProject IDA (International Deployment of Accelerometers)1981 The Gold Medal (A) The Society's highest honour1990 Balzan Prize WinnerJ. Freeman Gilbert Receives 1999 William Bowie Medal2004 The Harry Fielding Reid Medal of the Seismological Society of AmericaObituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilbert, James Freeman
1931 births
2014 deaths
People from Vincennes, Indiana
American geophysicists
Linear algebraists
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
University of California, San Diego faculty
University of California, Los Angeles faculty
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
Road incident deaths in Oregon