S. Das

Professor in Earth Sciences

I am a seismologist and received my doctorate at MIT in 1976. My research in earthquake studies has been conducted in several broad areas of observational and theoretical seismology over the last three decades. The major goal of the work is to understand the physics of the earthquake preparation and faulting process, and to predict expected motion at sites of engineering interest (the built environment) due to large earthquakes. The long-term goal is to prepare the physical basis for developing the capability to predict earthquakes, in future, if possible. Current research is focussed on the scaling of small to large earthquakes, study of very large submarine earthquake which cannot be studied by any other means such as GPS or SAR, and study of deep earthquakes and shapes of deep seismic zones along with its implications for mantle dynamics.

Recently, I have been working on great earthquakes in Sumatra, Antarctica, and Indonesia. I have served on the UK Government's Natural Hazards Working Group, set up by Sir David King, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government.

# Pegler, G. and S. Das Analysis of the relationship between seismic moment and fault length for large crustal strike-slip earthquakes between 1977-92, Geophys. Res. Lett., 23, 905-908, 1996.

# Pegler, G. and S. Das, An enhanced image of the Pamir - Hindu Kush seismic zone obtained from relocated earthquake hypocenters, Geophys. J. Intl., 134, 573-595, 1998.

# Schoffel, H. J. and S. Das, Fine details of the Wadati-Benioff zone under Indonesia and its geodynamic implications, J. Geophys. Res., 104, 13101-13114, 1999.

# Campus, P. and S. Das, Comparison of the rupture and radiation characteristics of intermediate and deep earthquakes, J. Geophys. Res., 105, 6177-6189, 2000.

# Das, S., H-J Schoffel and F. Gilbert, Mechanism of slab thickening near 670 km under Indonesia, Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 831-834, 2000.

# Henry, C., S. Das and J. H. Woodhouse, The March 25, 1998 M = 8.1 Antarctic Plate earthquake: Moment tensor and rupture history, J. Geophys. Res., 105}, 16,097-16,119, 2000.

# Robinson, D. P., C. Henry, S. Das and J. H. Woodhouse, Simultaneous Rupture Along Two Conjugate Planes of the Wharton Basin Earthquake, Science, 292, 1145-1148, 2001.

# Henry, C. and S. Das, Aftershock zones of large shallow earthquakes: Fault dimensions, aftershock area expansion, and scaling relations, Geophys. J. Intl., 147, 272-293, 2001.

# Henry, C. and S. Das, The Mw 8.2 February 17, 1996 Biak, Indonesia earthquake: Rupture history, aftershocks and fault plane properties, J. Geophys. Res., 107, 2312,doi:10.1029/2001JB000796,2002.

# Das, S. and C. Henry, Spatial relation between main earthquake slip and its aftershock distribution, Rev. Geophys.,41, 1013, doi:10.1029/2002RG000119, 2003.

# Das, S., Dynamic fracture mechanics in the study of the earthquake rupturing process: Theory and observation, J. Mech. Phys. Solids, 51, 1939-1955, 2003.

# Das, S., Seismicity Gaps and the Shape of the Seismic Zone in the Banda Sea Region from Relocated Hypocenters, J. Geophys. Res., 109, doi:10.1029/2004JB003192, 2004.

# Ammon, C.J., Chen Ji, Hong-Kie Thio, David Robinson, Sidao Ni, Vala Hjorleifsdottir, Hiroo Kanamori, Thorne Lay, Shamita Das, Don Helmberger, Gene Ichinose, Jascha Polet, and David Wald (2005), Rupture process of the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, Science, 308(5725), 1133-1139, 2005.

# Robinson, D. P., S. Das, A. B. Watts (2006), earthquake rupture stalled by subducting fracture zone, Science, 312(5777), 1203-1205.

# Das, S. (2007)The need to study speed, Science, 317(5840), 905-906.