User:Vidale

John Emilio Vidale (March 15, 1959 –) is an American-born seismologist who has looked at lots of seismograms and made several minor contributions to the science.

Vidale was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, studied physics and geology at Yale, and obtained his Ph.D. from Caltech in 1987. He then held positions at UC Santa Cruz and the USGS until he joined UCLA in 1995. In 2006, he moved to Seattle to direct the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington. He was a Gutenberg Fellow at Caltech, Gilbert Fellow of the USGS, is a Fellow of AGU and received AGU's Macelwane Medal.

He has studied the relation of Earth tides and earthquakes - finding only the strongest tides noticeably effect the timing of earthquakes, earthquake swarms - finding they are a more general phenomenon than he previously suspected , the inner core - discovering high-frequency seismic waves scattered scattered therein that offer a second line of evidence it is rotating about 0.2 degrees per year , the stronger than expected healing of fault zones after an earthquake , and various details of the seismic structure of the mantle. Instances of unwise endorsements of risky experiments , misquotes , and mild ridicule are out there, as well.