Andrija Mohorovičić

Andrija Mohorovičić (around 1880)

Andrija Mohorovičić [ ˈaːndria ˈmɔhɔrɔʋitʃitɕ ] (born January 23, 1857 in Volosko near Opatija , † December 18, 1936 in Zagreb ) was a Croatian meteorologist and geophysicist . In 1909 he succeeded for the first time in recording the interface between the earth's crust and mantle using earthquake waves .

Life

Mohorovičić studied mathematics and physics at the Karl Ferdinand University in Prague from 1875 to 1879 , among others with Ernst Mach . Then he was a teacher at a secondary school and at the seaman's school in Bakar near Rijeka . There he founded a meteorological observatory in 1887 . In 1891 he became a professor at the Technical Secondary School in Zagreb (Agram) and director of the State Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics . In 1892 he received his doctorate with a meteorological thesis at the University of Zagreb .

Since 1900, however, his main interest has been seismology because earthquakes are frequent on the Balkan peninsula. The observatory received a seismograph after an earthquake in 1880 , but it was quite imperfect. After a strong earthquake in 1901, more powerful instruments and an astatic pendulum from Emil Wiechert were acquired . In 1910, Mohorovičić discovered on seismograms of the Pokupsko quake near Zagreb on October 8, 1909 that some P and S quake waves arrived later than expected. He concluded that they were flexed at a border about 54 km deep . Later investigations confirmed this interface as a worldwide phenomenon: At a depth of 30–50 km, the earth's mantle begins with a temperature of around 600 ° C.

This interface was later called the Mohorovičić discontinuity and is now often abbreviated to “Moho” in geosciences . Within the lithosphere , the outer shell of the earth, this interface separates the earth's crust from the outer layer of the upper mantle. Ten years after this high point in his work as a seismologist, Mohorovičić retired in 1921. After his death he was buried in the Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb . The asteroid (8422) Mohorovičić is named after him.

Mohorovičić is the father of the physicist and geophysicist Stjepan Mohorovičić (1890–1980), a physics teacher at a school in Zagreb , still remembered today as he predicted the existence of positronium in 1934 (in the astronomical news). He also predicted a Mohorovičić discontinuity on the moon, which was also found by the measurements of the Apollo astronauts. Andrija Mohorovičić had four sons in total.

literature

S. Batušić: Mohorovičić Andrija. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 6, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-7001-0128-7 , p. 343 f. (Direct links on p. 343 , p. 344 ).
Bruce A. Bolt: Earthquake - Key to Geodynamics , Spectrum Academic Publishing House, Heidelberg 1995, ISBN 3-86025-353-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Bruce A. Bolt : Earthquake - Key to Geodynamics , p. 95f.
↑ Biography with that of other Croatian scientists, including Andrija Mohorovičić . See also: G. Ivanišević, Stjepan Mohorovičić (1890-1980) and his "private station for cosmic physics" , Publ. Astron. Soc. "Rudjer Bovsković", No. 4, 1985, pp. 131-134. Sometimes 1880 is also given as the year of birth.

personal data
SURNAME	Mohorovičić, Andrija
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Croatian geophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH	January 23, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH	Volosko near Rijeka
DATE OF DEATH	December 18, 1936
Place of death	Zagreb

[1] Bruce A. Bolt : Earthquake - Key to Geodynamics , p. 95f.

[2] Biography with that of other Croatian scientists, including Andrija Mohorovičić . See also: G. Ivanišević, Stjepan Mohorovičić (1890-1980) and his "private station for cosmic physics" , Publ. Astron. Soc. "Rudjer Bovsković", No. 4, 1985, pp. 131-134. Sometimes 1880 is also given as the year of birth.