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European Seismological Commission

In Memory of Jan Kozak

Dr. Jan Kozák (April 28, 1938 – August 30, 2022)

JanKozakAfter a short illness, our colleague Jan Kozák passed away on August 30, 2022, when he was 84. Most of his scientific career he spent in the Institute of Geophysics in Prague, Czech Republic. He was not a geophysicist by education, but he joined the Institute as an experimental physicist. For decades, he worked in the lab of seismic modeling mostly on tasks of studying acoustic emissions in loading experiments and seismic wave propagation through materials with complex structure. His excellent experimental results helped to resolve a lot of puzzles both scientific and industrial as well. Most of Jan’s career was, however, linked to his parallel passion for history and art. Already as a young man, he became an enthusiast in collecting pieces of fine arts, especially engravings of geographical maps, historical town sights, and later also depictions of natural phenomena and catastrophic events like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, typhoons etc. Apart of beauty and artistic value of these art pieces, they may contain also information worth to be decoded for practical purposes. Jan Kozák was interested in following this link especially concerning depiction of earthquakes and the chance to retrieve hints about intensity of the events reported. The effort along this line resulted in several books with maps and depictions of macroseismic effects of many major historic earthquakes. The issues are study material for hypothesizing about seismic intensity of these events from the past, at the same time they are beautiful pieces of art by themselves, and valued part of libraries of fine art lovers. Joining the everyday plain labor with the passion and entertainment, Jan was a happy man who succeeded to do this to a large extent.

Jan Kozák was a man of wide range of interests, and a man of broad and deep knowledge of many disciplines. Physics was his profession, but he made people wondering about his knowledge of history and especially fine arts. People, who knew him, would witness that it was really enjoying to conversate with him on history, philosophy, religion and arts. It must not be forgotten that he owned a specific – sometimes a bit sharp – but always a kind humor witnessing that he loved people. Jan, we will miss you.

News

Two ESC/SSA Travel Grants available to attend the 2025 SSA Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland

Apply for the ESC/SSA travel grant by the deadline of 30 November 2024! Seismologists from any member state of the ESC are eligble to apply. We encourage in particular students and early-career researchers to consider applying. More information can be found here.


Announcement: ESC General Assembly 2026

The next ESC General Assembly will be held in Istanbul (Turkey), tentatively in the second week of September 2026. This will be the 40th General Assembly. We look forward to seeing you in Istanbul!


From the Working Groups:

Visit the website of the FAULT2SHA Working Group and find out about its forthcoming activities

Visit the website of the WG Preservation, valorisation and analysis of seismological legacy data

Visit the website of the WG Harmonizing Internet Macroseismology in Europe 

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Find out about the Young Seismologist Training Course here.

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Sadly we announce the loss of esteemed and beloved colleagues and friends:

 
Older obituaries can be found here.