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Marielle Cremer |
AbstractAt the beginning of the 20th century, the discipline of seismology and an international seismological organization were being created. Both developments are presented here and investigated from the point of view of their mutual interactions on one another. The following four aspects are in the foreground.
The instrumental and experimental prerequisites for a modern seismic method were created by British scientists in Japan and by a German astronomer. Their research work made possible a time-dependent registration of earthquakes and their measurement world-wide. This scientific progress triggered a discipline-forming process. Systematic bodies of theoretical and instrumental research were formed. Seismology established itself as an university subject. An organ for publishing seismic contributions and the first seismic institutes were founded. The experience with seismic methods gathered during the First World War led, in the post-war period, to the creation of a branch of industry geared to the seismic search for storage locations. As a consequence of this, applied seismic research began to spread and consolidate itself. The possibility of measuring earthquakes on a world-wide basis made seismology an international affair. In 1902, the geographer Georg Gerland invited participants to the first international seismological conference in Strasbourg. In spite of great international tension, the following years saw the foundation of an international seismological association of nations with its central headquarters in Strasbourg. Until the end of the First World War, this central bureau in Strasbourg – at that time the German city of Strassburg –, which became a prestige object for Germany, was run by German scientists. After the war, the directorship was vested in a French researcher, as the central bureau remained in Strasbourg, now a French city. This marked the beginning of intensive seismic research in France. The German scientists, who had been excluded from the international community after the war, founded a German organization of their own, setting up a new German central institute in Jena.
The four emphasized aspects show that, and how, the development of the discipline of seismology and its international organization mutually influenced each other. The young discipline of seismic research gained prestige from its internationalization, which in tum aroused the interest of numerous researchers and governments. This interest finally, albeit often hampered by the struggle of international tensions, provided the motive power for this new branch of science, which in the end fulfilled all the requirements of a scientific discipline.
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