Giuseppe Mercalli

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Giuseppe Mercalli
Mercalli intensity scale
Scientific career
FieldsVolcanology

Giuseppe Mercalli (21 May 1850 – 19 March 1914) was an Italian

Mercalli intensity scale for measuring earthquake
intensity.

Biography

See also:
List of Roman Catholic cleric–scientists

Born in

Naples University. He was also director of the Vesuvius Observatory
until the time of his death.

Mercalli's photograph of Vesuvius, taken immediately after its eruption in 1906

Giuseppe Mercalli also observed eruptions of the volcanoes

Vesuvius
immediately after its eruption in 1906.

In 1914, Mercalli burnt to death under suspicious circumstances, allegedly after knocking over a paraffin lamp in his bedroom.[1] He is thought to have been working through the night, as he often did (he once was found working at 11 a.m. when he had set an examination, upon hearing which he replied, "It surely can't be daylight yet!"), when the fatal accident occurred. His body was found, carbonized, by his bed, holding a blanket which he apparently attempted to use to fend off the flames. The authorities, however, stated a few days later that the professor was quite possibly murdered by strangling and soaked in petrol and burned to conceal the crime because they determined that some money (now worth about $1,400) was missing from the professor's apartment.

Intensity scales

See also:
Seismic scale

Mercalli devised two earthquake intensity scales, both modifications of the

Mercalli intensity scale, had ten degrees, and elaborated the descriptions in the Rossi–Forel scale.[4]

The

Richter magnitude scale, which measures the energy released by an earthquake, the Mercalli intensity scale measures the effects of an earthquake on structures and people. It is poorly suited for measuring earthquakes in sparsely populated areas but useful for comparing damage done by various tremors and historical earthquakes, and for earthquake engineering
. The scale currently in use assigns indices ranging from I ("Not felt, except by a few under favorable conditions"), to XII ("Damage total; objects thrown into the air").

Italian physicist Adolfo Cancani expanded the ten-degree Mercalli scale with the addition of two degrees at the more intense of the scale: XI (catastrophe) and XII (enormous catastrophe).

Richter scale
.

References

  1. ^ "Prof. G. Mercalli Burned To Death; Famous Director of Vesuvian Observatory Upsets Oil Lamp Upon Himself". The New York Times. March 20, 1914.
  2. ^ Mercalli, Giuseppe (1883). Vulcani e Fenomeni Vulcanici in Italia. Geologia d’Italia. Vol. 3. Milan: Francesco Vallardi. pp. 217–218.
  3. doi:10.1785/BSSA0110020095
    .
  4. ^ Mercalli, Giuseppe (1902). "Sulle modificazioni proposte alla scala sismica De Rossi-Forel". Boll Soc Sismol Ital (8): 184–191.
  5. ISBN 978-0124406582
  6. ^ Cancani, Adolfo (1904). "Sur l'emploi d'une double echelle sismique des intensitès, empirique et absolue". Gerlands Beitr Geophys (2): 281–283.
  7. ^ Charles F. Richter; 1958. Elementary Seismology. W. H. Freeman & Company, San Francisco & London, 768 p
  8. ^ Eiby G. A., 1966. The Modified Mercalli Scale of Earthquake Intensity and Its Use in New Zealand. N.Z. Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 9, pp. 122-129.

External links

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