Andrija Mohorovicic Biography

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Andrija Mohorovičić Mohorovičić was born in Volosko, Opatija on January 23, 1857. He loved the sea and eventually married a Captain’s daughter, they had four sons. Mohorovičić obtained his younger education in his home town, then obtained his higher education majoring in mathematics and physics at the Faculty of Philosophy in Prague in 1875. When he was 15 he knew Italian, English and French, later he learned German, Latin and Ancient Greek. Mohorovičić was very smart. Mohorovičić also studied Meteorology, he founded the local meteorlogical station in 1887. He made systematic studies and both invented and constructed instruments to observe precipitation in Croatia and Slavonia. On October 8, 1909 there was an earthquake in the Pokuplje Region. Seismographs were installed before the earthquake and it gave valuable data which Mohorovičić made new discoveries. By analyzing the data Mohorovičić concluded that the earth has several layers above the core. Also, based on the evidence from seismic waves, he was the first to establish the discontinuity that separates the earth’s crust form its mantle, it is now called Mohorovičić discontinuity or Moho. According to Mohorovičić, the layers of the earth explain why seismic waves change speed, and the difference of the chemical composition of rocks from the crust and those from the mantle. Mohorovičić's theories were only truly understood many years later from detailed observations of the effects of earthquakes on buildings. Mohorovičić retired in 1921, he died in Zagreb on December 18, 1936. A crater on the moon was named in his honor, and in 1996 an asteroid was named after
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