Bruce Bolt

Since 2006, there is an award with his name, the Bruce A. Bolt Medal, to recognize individuals worldwide whose accomplishments involve the promotion and use of strong-motion earthquake data and whose leadership in the transfer of scientific and engineering knowledge into practice or policy has led to improved seismic safety.

In 2006, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute jointly with the Seismological Society of America established an award in his name, The Bruce A. Bolt Medal, to recognize individuals worldwide whose accomplishments involve the promotion and use of strong-motion earthquake data and whose leadership in the transfer of scientific and engineering knowledge into practice or policy has led to improved seismic safety.

Bolt died of pancreatic cancer in July 2005 at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland. He was a citizen of the US at the time of his death.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, he started to work on characterizing the seismic sources and assessing tsunami risk. This probably was his last work as consultant on seismology.

In 1995, Bolt delivered the fifth Mallet-Milne memorial lecture (entitled From Earthquake Acceleration to Seismic Displacement) for the Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics, in London.

Bruce retired from teaching in 1993 and became professor emeritus of seismology, thus continuing his academic activities until his death. He was a consultant on seismology for every major earthquake engineering project including on the Diablo Canyon Power Plant as well as international projects including the Aswan Dam, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and BART tube under the San Francisco Bay.

Professor Bolt served on the California Seismic Safety Commission for 15 years including a year as chairman in 1986. In that position, he had a significant impact on California's earthquake safety legislation and helped to create that states mandatory system of earthquake hazard mapping.

Bolt started as director of the Berkeley Seismological Stations (now the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory) in 1963 and served in that position until 1991. In that position, he was at the forefront of seismology especially as a pioneer of engineering seismology. He identified the impact of near-fault effects of earthquakes as well as the "fling" where the fault slips during an earthquake which has a strong impact on structures near the quake. Professor Bolt was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering in 1978 as recognition for his contribution to that profession. As director of the Berkeley Seismology Center, Bolt pioneered the use of digital recordings rather than paper readouts to read data.

Bruce Alan Bolt (February 15, 1930 – July 21, 2005) was an Australian-born American seismologist and a professor of earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Bolt was known as a pioneer of engineering seismology. He served for 15 years on the California Seismic Safety Commission leading public debate on earthquake safety in that state, and acted as a consultant on major projects throughout the world. As well, Bolt published a number of popular and technical books on seismology.

Bolt was born in Largs, New South Wales just north of Maitland in 1930. He studied at the University of Sydney obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1952, a master's degree in 1955 and a doctorate in applied mathematics in 1959. He also lectured at Sydney University in mathematics but developed an interest in mathematical modelling of the Earth's interior. He obtained a D. Sc from Sydney University in 1972 while working at Berkeley. After visiting the Lamont Geological Observatory in New York, he visited the Department of Geodesy and Geophysics at Cambridge University where he met Professors Perry Byerly and John Verhoogen of UC Berkeley who invited him there.

Bolt identified that the epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was near Daly City, California not near Olema, California in Marin County as had been previously thought. He also helped to design a simulation of the 1906 quake at the California Academy of Sciences museum in Golden Gate Park which has been seen by millions of people. He has written a number of works including Earthquakes: a Primer in 1978 and Inside the Earth: Evidence from Earthquakes in 1982.