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SSA 101

Over the course of the past year, the Seismological Society of America has been observing the Society's centennial. Founded in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, SSA will turn 101 this coming November 20th. From its beginning, SSA has been dedicated to the advancement of the scientific understanding of earthquakes, a discipline that can hardly be said to have existed in the United States a hundred years ago. Equally important to the founders were the promotion of earthquake risk reduction and education of the public about earthquake hazards, as any of you who have read the Society's objectives (see inside the front cover of Seismological Research Letters or http://www.seismosoc.org/about/purpose.html) will know. In this brief commentary, I'd like to reflect on where we have come in the past 100 years in addressing our objectives, and on the challenges that we face today.

Only by working together can we sustain the progress achieved over the past century and begin to attack the growing threat that the natural hazards we study pose to an increasingly urbanized and exposed world.

 

The 1906 earthquake and fire catalyzed a small group of scientists and public-minded citizens to join together "for the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge concerning earthquakes and allied phenomena, and to enlist the support of the people and the government in the attainment of these ends" (see Perry Byerly's 1964 history of SSA in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 54 (6): 1,723–1,741). The early membership rosters naturally reflected the strong local interest in the California earthquake. But by 1911, the first year that BSSA was published, the membership, then 362 strong, had already become international, with 20 countries represented. Today, our nearly 2,000 members hail from 69 countries and include earth scientists, engineers, risk managers, and allied professionals. . . . [Full Text of this Article]

William L. Ellsworth, President

Seismological Society of America
president@seismosoc.org