In the United States, Grove Karl Gilbert, after studying the fault scarp from the 1872 Owens Valley, California earthquake, concluded that the faults were a primary feature of earthquakes, not a secondary one. Until his time, most people thought that earthquakes were the result of underground explosions and that faults were only a result of the explosion, not a primary feature of earthquakes.

Also in the United States, Harry Fielding Reid took Gilbert's work one step further. After examining the fault trace of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Reid deduced that earthquakes were the result of the gradual buildup of stresses within the earth occurring over many years. This stress is due to distant forces and is eventually released violently during an earthquake, allowing the earth to rapidly rebound after years of accumulated strain.

The late 1800s and early 1900s also saw scientific inquiry into earthquakes begun by Japanese researchers. Seikei Sekiya became the first person to be named a professor in seismology; he was also one of the first people to quantitatively analyse seismic recordings from earthquakes. Another famous Japanese researcher from that time is Fusakichi Omori, who, among other work, studied the rate of decay of aftershock activity following large earthquakes. His equations are still in use today.

The twentieth century has seen an increased interest in the scientific study of earthquakes, too involved to discuss here. It should be noted, however, that research into earthquakes has broadened and contributions now come from numerous areas affected by earthquakes, including Japan, the United States, Europe, Russia, Canada, Mexico, China, Central and South America, New Zealand, and Australia, among others.

Source:

This account is loosely based on The Founders of Seismology, by Charles Davison, Arno Press, New York, 1978.