Map
of California & Nevada earthquakes
Earthquake expert Bruce Bolt dies at 75
- 7/26/2005 Betsy Mason from the Contra Costa Times
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Bruce Bolt, a passionate, influential advocate for seismic safety who was instrumental in forming many of the state's earthquake hazard and preparedness laws, died Thursday in an Oakland hospital of pancreatic cancer.
Bolt, who was one of California's best known earthquake experts, was 75.
"He leaves a very rich legacy of public policy," said engineer Fred Turner of the California Seismic Safety Commission, for whom Bolt was a commissioner for 15 years, including a year as chairman in 1986. "It's a very big loss for California."
During Bolt's tenure as commissioner from 1978 to 1993, the commission sponsored numerous bills that became California law, including the seismic hazard mapping program, earthquake preparedness programs, seismic safety improvements for unreinforced masonry buildings, mobile homes, private schools and hospitals, and disclosure of earthquake weaknesses to potential home buyers.
"It was a very prolific era," said Turner, who has worked for the commission since 1988. Turner also was a student of Bolt, who was a professor at UC Berkeley and director of the University of California Seismograph Stations.
Bolt was also known for his work in bridging the gap between seismologists and engineers to help them design buildings to better withstand earthquakes. At UC Berkeley he was a professor of earth and planetary sciences from 1963 to 1993, but he also was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1978 and joined the school's civil and environmental engineering department in 1988.
Another of Bolt's hallmarks was his ability to communicate complicated, arcane scientific issues to the public and lawmakers and motivate them to improve safety and preparedness, said Turner. Bolt wrote two popular books, "Earthquakes: A Primer" and "Inside the Earth: Evidence from Earthquakes."
Bolt consulted on many major seismic projects, including virtually every one of note in the state -- dams, bridges, airports and a nuclear power plant. Most recently he worked on an assessment of the Transbay Tube. He also consulted on the Alaska pipeline and the Aswan Dam in Egypt.
Active to the end, Bolt was scheduled to speak at a conference in April in San Francisco to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake and had returned in June from a trip to the Galapagos Islands with the California Academy of Sciences.
"He was going full bore," said daughter Gillian Bolt Kohli in a UC Berkeley news release Monday. "He kept up an amazing pace because he was so much in demand."
Bolt was president of the California Academy of Sciences from 1982 to 1985, and also served on its board of trustees for 12 years. He pushed for an exhibit about earthquake preparedness and narrated a demonstration about the 1906 earthquake for that exhibit, which was on view for about 20 years, said academy provost Terrence Gosliner.
He recalled walking by that exhibit many times and hearing Bolt's voice saying, "We must be prepared; it will happen again."
Betsy Mason covers science and the national laboratories. Reach her at 925-847-2158 or bmason@cctimes.com.
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Berkeley Seismological Lab
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Last modified: Wed Sep 17 09:20:44 PDT 2008