Introducing Seismologist Germán Prieto

Germán Prieto is an Assistant Professor of Geophysics in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). His main interest is in the use of seismic records to understand earthquake sources, the interior of the Earth, and how each affects the ground motions that we feel on the Earth's surface.
Seismological observations are affected by the internal structure of the Earth, for example amplification of seismic waves in sedimentary basins. The nature of the earthquake source also has a significant impact on ground motions, and Prieto is interested in a better understanding of earthquake ruptures, i.e., are large earthquakes different from the more common small ones?
A particular interest is whether the earthquake process is self-similar, i.e. is an M = 8.0 earthquake simply an M = 2.0 earthquake scaled by a large factor or is the physics of the two processes different?
After receiving his bachelor degree in geology from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Prieto obtained his doctorate in earth sciences from Scripps (UC San Diego). Since 2009 Prieto has been an assistant professor in the physics department at the Universidad de los Andes. He joined EAPS in July 2013.
Video credit: Helen Hill. Special thanks to MIT student B. Michini for use of his time-lapse "Green Building and Great Sail, MIT".