Роберт Маллет: Ирландиялық геофизик және сейсмологияның негізін қалаушы

Irish geophysicist (1810–1881)
the Irish geophysicist

Robert Mallet (3 June 1810 – 5 November 1881) was an Irish geophysicist, civil engineer, and inventor who distinguished himself by research concerning earthquakes (and is sometimes known as the father of seismology). entering it at the age of 16 and graduating in science and mathematics in 1830 at the age of 20.

After his graduation, he joined his father's iron foundry business and helped build the business into one of the most important engineering works in Ireland, supplying ironwork for railway companies, the Fastnet Rock lighthouse, and a swing bridge over the River Shannon at Athlone. He also helped manufacture the characteristic iron railings that surround Trinity College and which bear his family name at the base. and performed blasting experiments to determine the speed of seismic propagation in sand and solid rock. Mallet, with letters of endorsement from Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin, petitioned the Royal Society of London and received a grant of £150 to go to Padula and record the devastation personally. The resulting report was presented to the Royal Society as the Report on the Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857. It was a major scientific work and made great use of the then new process of photography to record the devastation caused by the earthquake. In 1862, he published the "Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857: The First Principles of Observational Seismology"

Blind for the last seven years of his life, he died at Stockwell, London, on 5 November 1881 and is buried at West Norwood Cemetery.