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Guide to the Don Lynn Anderson Papers, 1968-1994
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Table of contents
Title: Don Lynn Anderson Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1968-1994
Creator:
Anderson, Don Lynn
Extent: Linear feet: 1
Repository:
California Institute of Technology. Archives.
Pasadena, California 91125
Language:
English.
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the California Institute of Technology Archives. All
requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing
to the Head of the Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the
California Institute of Technology Archives as the owner of the physical items and is not
intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be
obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item, Box and file number], Don Lynn Anderson Papers, Archives,
California Institute of Technology.
Professor of Geophysics Don Lynn Anderson was Director of Caltech's Seismological
Laboratory from 1967 through 1989. In that position, he succeeded two front rank
geophysicists, Beno Gutenberg and Frank Press. The Seismo Lab was founded in Pasadena in
1927 by the Carnegie Institution of Washington; its administration was taken over by
Caltech some years later, in 1937.
Although closely associated with the development of the magnitude scale (the "Richter
scale") and other aspects of seismological measurement, the Seismo Lab has been much more
than an earthquake lab. In writing about the Lab in 1989, Anderson stressed its
non-earthquake aspects: "The Seismology Laboratory is not primarily an observatory; it
has been, in fact, the 'Geophysics Department' at Caltech." While providing earthquake
information for the local and statewide community and running the Southern California
Seismic Array (the "Network" of seismic stations which record earthquake data), the Lab
has produced major scientific work in geophysics throughout its history.
The papers in this collection were deposited in the Archives in 1996 by Professor
Anderson. They date from the period of his directorship of the Lab and concern the Lab
directly. However, they do not form a complete record, as there are notable gaps, for
example, in Anderson's own series of memos (nothing for the last ten years of his tenure)
and in general administrative correspondence.
Researchers interested in the history of the Seismology Laboratory should also examine
the following files in the Caltech Archives: Historical Files (under Geology Division),
Seismology Records (microfiche), and the papers of Beno Gutenberg, Charles Richter and
Harry O. Wood.