April 2006

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Scientist Shares Earthquake Expertise — in Mandarin

If you haven't heard of Dr. Honn Kao, it may be because you don't read or speak Mandarin.

He is one of a number of geoscientists at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) who know earthquakes inside out and can communicate the complex seismic science in more than one language.

In Dr. Kao's case, being able to speak Mandarin has meant that when there is a natural disaster somewhere in the world, he is almost always called on by local and international media looking for someone who can discuss it in the language of their viewers, listeners and readers.

Since the Sumatra earthquake of 2004, for example, Dr. Kao has contributed to news stories on the earthquake in Pakistan and Hurricane Katrina. In 2005, he participated in two year-end Mandarin-language radio specials on the top 10 news stories of the year, and recently went on air to talk about natural disasters that could hit the west coast of Canada.

"I take every opportunity to raise awareness and understanding of seismic hazards and natural disasters, because knowing about potential threats is the first step toward reducing their impacts and saving lives," he says.

Based at the Pacific Geoscience Centre in Sidney, British Columbia, near Victoria, Dr. Kao didn't start out wanting to study seismology. He switched during the first semester of his senior year at the National Central University in Taiwan. And he remembers exactly why.

"I was attending an introductory lecture, and the instructor demonstrated how Lord Rayleigh predicted the existence of surface waves using wave theory long before such a kind of wave was actually observed. I was absolutely amazed by that, and suddenly realized the power of scientific analysis," he recalls.

Dr. Kao went on to earn a Bachelor of Science from that university's Department of Geophysics in 1985 and then attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 1991 with a Master's and in 1993 with a Ph.D.

His research focus now is the "source study" of earthquakes, which looks at things like their location, depth, duration and size or magnitude. He also investigates rupture properties — in other words, the orientation of the fault, specifically its direction and velocity. And with fellow NRCan scientists, Dr. Herb Dragert and Dr. Garry Rogers, Dr. Kao is also involved in a pioneering study looking at episodic tremor and slip events that occur regularly beneath Vancouver Island.

Word of Dr. Kao has definitely got around in the Mandarin-speaking world.

"Once when I was doing a live interview over the phone, talking about earthquake hazards, I did not realize there was another guest on the line. It turned out this particular guest was the deputy head of the Seismology Centre of the Central Weather Bureau — one of my friends back in Taiwan! We were both surprised to find each other on the same interview, and after that many of my formal colleagues and friends in Taiwan knew I had become part of the official voice here."

Find out more about earthquakes and the research of Drs. Honn Kao, Herb Dragert, Garry Rogers and others at NRCan by visiting the new Earthquakes Canada site at www.earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca.