Hugo Benioff

Victor Hugo Benioff (September 14, 1899 – February 29, 1968) was an American seismologist and a professor at the California Institute of Technology.

[1] After graduating from Pomona College in 1921, Benioff began his career with the idea of being an astronomer and worked for a time at Mount Wilson Observatory, but when he found that astronomers work at night and sleep in the daytime, he quickly switched to seismology.

One of his most recent accomplishments was a refined version of the old Benioff seismometer which has given seismologists more knowledge about the cause of very deep earthquakes.

Benioff noticed that earthquake sources get deeper under the overriding tectonic plate proceeding away from the trench at a subduction zone.

From the early 1930s, Benioff also worked on creating electric musical instruments; in particular a piano, violin and cello.