Bruce Bolt - Career at Berkeley

Career At Berkeley

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.

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.

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.

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 and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

Professor Bolt retired in 1993 and 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.