Victor Hugo Benioff (September 14, 1899 – February 29, 1968) was an Americanseismologist and aprofessor at theCalifornia Institute of Technology. He is best remembered for his work in charting the location of deepearthquakes in thePacific Ocean.
Benioff was born inLos Angeles. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Kyiv in the Russian Empire and his mother a Lutheran fromSweden.[1] After graduating fromPomona College in 1921, Benioff began his career with the idea of being anastronomer and worked for a time atMount Wilson Observatory, but when he found that astronomers work at night and sleep in the daytime, he quickly switched to seismology. He joined theSeismological Laboratory in 1924 and received his Ph.D. from theCalifornia Institute of Technology in 1935.
Benioff is noted as a pioneer in the design of earthquake instruments. One of his first instruments, created in 1932, was the Benioffseismograph, which senses the movement of the earth – these instruments are now used in every country in the world. Equally famous is the Benioff strain instrument, which records the stretching of the Earth's surface. One of his most recent accomplishments was a refined version of the old Benioff seismometer which has given seismologists more knowledge about the cause of very deep earthquakes.
Benioff noticed that earthquake sources get deeper under the overridingtectonic plate proceeding away from thetrench at asubduction zone. He realized that this inclined array of earthquake sources indicate the position of the portion of the plate that has already been subducted. Thus, that pattern of earthquakes is known as aWadati–Benioff zone.
From the early 1930s, Benioff also worked on creatingelectric musical instruments; in particular apiano,violin andcello. He continued developing these instruments for the rest of his life, working for over two decades withpianistRosalyn Tureck and also, towards the end of his life with theBaldwin Piano Company. He was elected a fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958.[2] Also in the same year he was elected as president ofSeismological Society of America (1958).[3]
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